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The girls were brought up by their mother indoors in all the labours of housewifery, but also in the delicate art of needlework, so much more exquisite in those days than now.
Although the Romans gave their daughters an education relatively advanced, they never forgot to inculcate in them the idea that it was the duty of a woman, especially if she was nobly born, to know all the arts of good housewifery, and especially, as most important, spinning and weaving.
But sometimes, when little Helen proffered her assistance, Tira let the child try her hand, taking great pains to instruct her in housewifery, warmly praising her successful essays, and finding excuses for every failure. It was not long before a cordial friendship subsisted between the teacher and her pupil.
The queen her mother was already up, and seated among her maids, spinning at her wheel, as the fashion was in those primitive times, when great ladies did not disdain housewifery: and the king her father was preparing to go abroad at that early hour to council with his grave senate.
Now all this was a cause of anxiety to her mother, who began to feel as if she would rather have had her child passed by in silence than so much noticed. Bell's opinion was, that it was creditable to a woman to go through life in the shadow of obscurity, never named except in connexion with good housewifery, husband, or children.
Annorah, on her part, thirsted for knowledge, especially for the wisdom that cometh from above. She improved, too, rapidly enough to satisfy a less partial teacher. In the varied arts of housewifery, and in the more intricate use of the needle, she had also become quite expert, and, to use Mrs. Lee's own words, "was quite a treasure in every part of the house."
So Lady Archfield poured out her troubles: how her daughter-in-law refused employment, and disdained instruction in needlework, housewifery, or any domestic art, how she jangled the spinnet, but would not learn music, and was unoccupied, fretful, and exacting, a burthen to herself and every one else, and treating Lucy as the slave of her whims and humours.
Moreover, Mary was too admirable a needlewoman not to wish to make her daughter the same; whereas Cicely's turn had always been for the department of housewifery, and she could make a castle in pastry far better than in tapestry; but where Queen Mary had a whole service of cooks and pantlers of her own, this accomplishment was uncalled for, and was in fact considered undignified.
The rest of the afternoon she spent wholly in exhorting Mrs Harrel to shew more fortitude, and conjuring her to study nothing while abroad but oeconomy, prudence and housewifery: a lesson how hard for the thoughtless and negligent Priscilla! she heard the advice with repugnance, and only answered it with helpless complaints that she knew not how to spend less money than she had always done.
A month spent before marriage in a training home of housewifery would conduce much more to the happiness of the married life than the honeymoon which immediately follows it. Especially is this the case with those who marry to go abroad and settle in a distant country. I often marvel when I think of the utter helplessness of the modern woman, compared with the handiness of her grandmother.
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