A NEW DOMESTIC.

  JANE, who had never seemed happy after her cousin's return to the old country, gave me notice, about a year afterwards, that she was going to leave me. She, too, pined for home, and was going back. I was sorry to part with Jane. She had been a faithful domestic, and faithful domestics are not easily obtained; but I did not think it right to oppose her. We parted the best of friends. On the day she left me, a new cook entered my kitchen. I did not like her appearance much. I thought she seemed ill-tempered. Certainly, she was very silent, and, to judge from first appearances, quite stupid. I felt discouraged.

  "Hannah," I said, on going into the kitchen, after breakfast, on the first day of her administration in culinary affairs,—"we will have dinner at two o'clock. I wish you to be very punctual. Mr. Elmwood is particular about having his meals precisely at the hour."

  To this Hannah made no reply, merely looking me in the face with a half intelligent stare.

  "You understand me, Hannah," I said, a little sharply—for I felt annoyed at her seeming stupidity, or want of good manners.

  "Yes, ma'am," she replied, in a low voice.

  "Very well. Don't fail to do every thing in good time."

  I then told her what we would have for dinner, and how I wished the different dishes cooked. During the morning, thoughts of my new cook troubled me a good deal. She was so different from Jane—at least from Jane when she left me. At first, even she did not know much about the duties she engaged herself to perform. Two or three times I went into the kitchen to see how things were progressing. But nothing was going on right. Hannah was slow, awkward, and untidy in her work. And I felt worried. When I spoke to her, it was in a pettish tone. Of this I was conscious, and, also, that it was wrong. But I had not that command of myself that would enable me to put down, by a decided effort, my wrong feelings. At one o'clock I found the preparations for dinner so behindhand, that a late meal was inevitable.

  "This won't do, Hannah," I said, suffering, in spite of my better sense, my feelings to betray themselves in my manner. "I explained to you this morning that dinner must be on the table precisely at two. But it will now be impossible to get it ready before half past two. This must never happen again."

  Saying this in a decided, rebuking tone, and with a stern countenance, I turned away and left the kitchen. I felt angry with Hannah, and angry with myself because I was angry with her, and likewise because I had no better control of myself. While sitting in the parlor, in a very unhappy mood, the door bell rang. It was answered by Hannah, who brought me in a magazine for the month that had just been delivered. I opened it carelessly, but was all attention in an instant, for the words—"Hiring a Servant"—met my eye as the caption of an article. After reading the first few lines, I lost all consciousness of my peculiar troubles. When I had finished the story—for story it was—I was in a state of mind altogether different from the one I had a short time previously been indulging. I saw my duty, and what was more, felt prepared to enter upon it in a right spirit. But, for the benefit of my fair countrywomen,

HIRING A SERVANT.

  "Well, I'll just give up at once; so there now! It's no use to try any longer!" said Mrs. Parry, passionately, as she came into the parlor where her husband sat reading, and threw herself upon the sofa.

  "Why, what is the matter now, Cara?" inquired Mr. Parry in a quiet tone, for he had seen like states of excitement so often that they had ceased to disturb him.

  "The matter? Why, a good deal! Sally is going away day after to-morrow, and I shall be left without a cook again. And what shall I do then? Can you tell me that?"

  "Hire another," was the unmoved reply of Mr. Parry.

  "Yes, it's easy enough to say 'hire another,' but saying and doing are two things. I never expect to get another as good as Sally, and she has been troublesome enough, dear knows!"

  Mr. Parry laid aside his newspaper, folded his hands together, and assuming a resigned attitude, looked his wife in the face, with an air of composure that annoyed her exceedingly.

  "You seem always to think this trouble about servants a very little matter," she said, somewhat pettishly; "I only wish you had the trial of it for awhile!"

  "I have no desire, I can assure you, Cara," he replied, in a soothing voice. "I never envied you, or any other woman, the pleasures appertaining to household duties. But you must allow me to think that much of the difficulty and annoyance which is too frequently experienced, might be avoided."

  "No doubt you think so. All men do. I verily believe there never was a man yet who possessed true sympathy for the peculiar trials incident to housekeeping."

  "Come, come, Cara! that is a sweeping declaration," Mr. Parry replied, smiling. "I, for one, think that I feel for you in all your various and conflicting duties, and were it in my power, would lighten every one of them. But, as I cannot do this, I cannot, of course, think that in entering into

  "It is easy enough to talk, Mr. Parry; but how do you think that I or any other woman can look on unmoved, and see every thing in disorder? If dinner is late, or badly cooked, you are very sure to speak about it; and how do you think I can feel easy when I see that, through the inattention of the servant, such a thing is going to happen, or feel at all pleasant after it has happened?"

  This was carrying the truth right home; and Mr. Parry remembered, all at once, that at sundry times he had grumbled because dinner was not on the table promptly; and, on various occasions, because the meat was overdone or underdone, or the vegetables cold or badly cooked. He therefore sat very still, and did not reply. Mrs. Parry perceived the impression she had made, and continued:—

  "Or, how do you think that I can feel otherwise than I do in prospect of just such things again, and a dozen others more annoying still? I've had enough trouble with Sally, to get her to understand how things ought to be done, and it disheartens me outright now she is determined to go away. I don't care much for myself, but I know how these household irregularities annoy you, and that

  Mr. Parry was silenced for the time. He saw that he was thrown completely "in the wrong," and that it would be useless to attempt then to argue himself out of his unenviable position. His wife, thus victorious, had the uninterrupted privilege for that day, at least, of being just as unhappy as she wished, in prospect of Sally's departure, and the annoyances that were to follow this event.

  During that day and the next, a gloom pervaded the household of Mrs. Parry. Sally felt more than ever anxious to be away. Once or twice the idea of remaining passed through her mind; but a sight of Mrs. Parry's overcast countenance instantly dispelled it.

  On the morning of the day on which Sally was to leave, an Irish girl, who had learned, through the chambermaid, that the cook was going away, applied for the situation.

  "Are you a good cook?" inquired Mrs. Parry.

  "O yes, ma'am; I can cook any thing."

  "Where did you live last?"

  "I am living in a tavern, ma'am."

  "Why do you wish to leave there?"

  "I don't like the place. You are so much exposed in a tavern."

  "What is your name?"

  "Margaret."

  "Well, Margaret, you can come on trial to-morrow morning. Sally is going to stay to-night."

  And so Margaret went away, promising to come back in the morning. At dinner time Mrs. Parry seemed a little more cheerful.

  "I've engaged a cook," she said, after the meal was nearly over.

  "Have you indeed! Well, I'm glad of that, Cara. You see you've had all your trouble for nothing."

  "I'm not sure of that," she replied. "It's one thing to hire a cook, and another thing to be pleased with her. She's an Irish girl, and you know that they are never very tidy about their work."

  "But they are, usually, willing and teachable. Are they not?"

  "Some of them are. But then, who wants the trouble of teaching every new servant her duty? It's enough to pay them their wages."

  "Still, in thus teaching them we are doing good. And we should always be willing to take upon

  "That would be too generous! I might, on your principle, be willing to do nothing else but teach ignorant servants their duty, and thus fit them to make other houses pleasant, instead of my own. For, it generally happens, that when you have made one of them worth having, she knows some one with whom she would rather live than with you. There was Nancy, that didn't know how to wash a dish, or cook a potato when I took her. She lived with us a year, until she could turn her hand to every thing, and then went to Mrs. Clayton's, where she has been for six years. Mrs. Clayton told me day before yesterday that she was the best woman she ever had in the house, and that she would not part with her upon any consideration. And here is Sally, with whom I have had my own time. She's getting to be good for something, and now she's contented here no longer."

  "That does seem a little hard, Cara. But, then, don't you feel a little gratification in reflecting that, through your means, Mrs. Clayton has obtained a servant who fills her place so well as to give satisfaction to the family?"

  "I can't say that I do," Mrs. Parry replied in a half positive, half hesitating tone.

  "Then if you do not," her husband said, seriously, "it is time that you began, at least, to make the effort to feel thus. The reason that we are so often made unhappy by the actions of those around us, is, because we regard our own good and our own comfort of primary importance. Any thing that disturbs these, disturbs us. But, if we desired to impart benefits as well as to receive them, we should come, as a necessary consequence, into a state of mind that could not be easily agitated. We would see in the wrong actions and in the short-comings of others, that which affected them injuriously, as well as ourselves, and in trying to modify or correct them, we would have a reference to their good will as to our own."

  "That may all be true enough; but I am sure that I could never act from such disinterested motives. It is not in me."

  "It is not in any one, naturally, to act thus, Cara. But that is no reason why good principles may not be formed in us. You can at least see, I suppose, that, if acted thus with reference to the good of others, every thing in society would move on much more pleasantly than it does."

  "O yes, of course. But if only a few, why they might work their lives through for the good of others, and be no better off by it."

  "A selfish idea, I see, is uppermost in your mind, Cara," her husband said kindly, and with an encouraging smile, for it was not often that he could get her to consent to talk rationally on such subjects. "The few who thus acted, would not have in their minds the idea of a reward. The delight which naturally springs up in the mind from the performance of good actions to others, would be to them a much higher gratification than any thing that could be given to them as an external reward for what they have done. Let me see if I cannot make this plain to your mind. Suppose Mrs. Clayton had so thoroughly educated an ignorant servant as to make her fully acquainted with all the household duties that might be required of her; and that after she was thus fitted for the performance of these duties, this servant left her, and finally came into your family. Do you not think that Mrs. Clayton might feel delight in the thought, that through her efforts to instruct that servant, she had acquired the ability of obtaining a comfortable home at any time, and you had the pleasure of having one in your family who lightened you of

  "Yes, I can see that she might. But I am not so sure she would feel thus."

  "And you can see, no doubt, that to feel thus would be much better than to have none but purely selfish affections."

  "Yes, I can see that, too. And, farther, I should be very glad if I could have principles of action so elevated."

  "You may have them, Cara. We all may have them," her husband said, earnestly and feelingly. "But then, it will be necessary for us to begin the correction in us of whatever is altogether of self; and to begin, too, in humble and little things. I must cease to complain, if every thing should not happen to be as orderly as I desire, and cease to do so, because I know that to complain thus will necessarily make you unhappy. I must not regard myself exclusively. And you, in reference to your servants, should regard them and their good, as well as the perfect order of your household arrangements. Under such a system, if carefully carried out, with the heart in it, a wonderful change would occur. In case things went wrong—and perfection cannot be attained in any thing

  "I fear, husband, that I have defects of character which will prevent my ever acting thus," Mrs. Parry said, in a tone slightly desponding.

  "A conscience of your weakness, my dear Cara, should make you doubly watchful. The end to be gained is worth years of trial. If you can only gain your own consent to commence the work of reformation from principle, you will soon begin to perceive its peaceable fruits, and thus find ample encouragement for perseverance."

  "I can, at least, try, husband," she said, looking up into his face with an expression of calm determination. "But," and her countenance changed, and assumed a look of despondency, "how shall I begin?—that is the puzzling question."

  "To begin aright is almost half the victory. And here I must confess that I hardly know how to give advice. But perhaps I can suggest a thought or two that will help you. This new cook who is coming, you say, is an Irish girl. It is not probable that, in the outset, she will be

  "I see and feel the force of what you say," Mrs. Parry replied, in a subdued tone, "and will, at least, try to put in practice the hints you have given me."

  On the next morning, after breakfast, Margaret came, and Sally went away, leaving the kitchen

  "Come, Margaret, bring your box up stairs, and I will show you your room."

  So Margaret lifted her box, which she had set down in one corner of the kitchen, and followed Mrs. Parry up into one of the garret rooms, which was plastered, and had but a few days before received a fresh coat of whitewash.

  "This is the room, Margaret, in which you, with the chambermaid, will sleep. She will keep it in order, of course; your duties will lie in the kitchen. You will find her very kind, and you must try and live on good terms with each other."

  "It shan't be my fault, ma'am, if we don't," Margaret said, warmly, for she felt Mrs. Parry's kind manner, and was instantly drawn towards her.

  "You say that you understand how to cook

  Margaret hesitated a moment, while the color rose to her face. At length she said, with a good deal of feeling in the tone of her voice—

  "I wouldn't deceive you for the world, ma'am, now you seem so kind to me. I am not a very good cook, for I never had much chance; but then, ma'am, I am anxious to learn."

  "But, didn't you tell me, Margaret, that you could cook any thing?" Mrs. Parry asked in an altered tone.

  "O yes, indeed, ma'am, and so I did. But then what could I do? If I had said I wasn't a good cook, you wouldn't have taken me; and so I'd a had no chance to learn at all. But indeed, ma'am, I'll try to do right, and if trying 'll do any good, I am sure I will please you."

  Mrs. Parry hesitated. She hardly knew what to do or say. There was something in Margaret's present frankness and apparent sincerity that she liked; but this was counterbalanced by a direct, premeditated falsehood, and an intention to deceive. After pausing for a few moments, she said—

  "Well, Margaret, I cannot say that I like your

  "Indeed, ma'am, it was necessity entirely that made me do it; but I knew that if I tried I could learn, and I thought surely the mistress will have patience with me when I am willing!"

  This modified Mrs. Parry considerably; and feeling, from having at first almost compelled herself to take an interest in the poor Irish girl, some touches of real concern for her, she said—

  "If you are really willing to learn and anxious to please, Margaret, I have no objection to taking some pains to instruct you. But then I shall want you to pay attention to what I tell you, so that after I have once given you a plain direction, you will not discourage me by forgetting it, when you come to do the thing over again."

  Margaret promised faithfully to do the best she could, and then set about her work. Heretofore, on hiring a new cook, Mrs. Parry had installed her into the kitchen, and then left her to go about things in her own way, under all the disadvantages of being in a strange place, unacquainted with the economical arrangements of the family. Of course, no one ever suited her at first, and it was usually some weeks before things got into regular going

  "Your dinner is in good time, and in good order," Mr. Parry remarked, after sitting down to the table; "and you don't seem to look worried, though a little warm, as if you had been pretty busy. I hope your new cook has proved herself better than you had anticipated that she would be."

  "She has proved to be quite deficient in every thing," Mrs. Parry replied.

  "Indeed! I am sorry to hear that. I thought she recommended herself highly."

  "So she did. But she confessed to me this morning, that she did so to secure the place, hoping to learn afterwards."

  "That is a bad sign. I suppose you do not intend keeping her."

  "Well, as to that, she seems so anxious to learn, and, withal, so willing and good tempered, that I feel very much disposed to take some trouble with her. I have been in the kitchen most of the morning, and, indeed, cooked the dinner pretty nearly myself. I see much in her to like, though a good deal that tries my patience. I must confess, that so decided an untruth as she told me prejudices me against her. Still, much allowance should be made for a defective education, and the disadvantages under which she found herself placed."

  "That is very sensible and kind, Cara," her husband replied, evidently pleased at finding his wife so readily making the effort to act from motives less selfish than those which had too uniformly governed her in matters relating to her domestics, "and I have no idea that your labor will be thrown away."

  "I feel somehow or other that it will not be thrown away," Mrs. Parry said; "and I feel, that my mind is much calmer and more encouraged than it would have been if I had left her alone in the kitchen, with the determination to send her

  "You are getting hold of the true philosophy, Cara," said her husband, with an encouraging smile. "We never cultivate good feelings towards others or make the effort towards being kind to them, that we have not a reward in a composed state of mind more than compensating for the self-denial or trouble it may cost us."

  "The truth of what you say is not only apparent to me, but I can realize it from having felt it," was Mr. Parry's reply.

  That evening, a Mrs. Coster, one of her friends, came in to spend an hour or two. Their conversation, by a natural transition, passed to the subject of servants.

  "I am almost out of all heart," Mrs. Coster said, with a sigh, as soon as the topic was introduced. "Indeed, I've given up all hope of ever having any peace again while I am in the power of so unprincipled a class as domestics. Is it not too bad, that the happiness of a whole family must be interrupted by a cook, or a chambermaid? It makes me feel downright angry whenever I think about it. I see it as clear as can be that we shall have to break up and go to boarding."

  "That would be exchanging one evil for a dozen," remarked Mrs. Parry.

  "So I used to think," Mrs. Coster replied. "But, really, I have been forced to change my mind. Every day the trouble with servants is increased. If you get one that is worth having, she will be off at the end of two or three months; and nine out of ten I wouldn't give house to room. They are, in fact, not worth the powder it would take to shoot them! But how are you off in this respect, Mrs. Parry?"

  "Well, I have my own troubles, Mrs. Coster. Sally, who has been with me a good while, left me this morning, and I've got a raw Irish girl in the kitchen, who couldn't cook a dinner in a decent way to save her life."

  "O dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Coster, clasping her hands together, and rolling up her eyes. "Then you have got your hands full. I had a trial of one of your raw Irish girls once, and a pretty piece of baggage she was. I left her to cook the dinner on the first day—and such a dinner! But I will not make the effort to give you an idea of it, or the dozen other things she attempted to do. I never want to hear of raw Irish girls again since I had a trial of Margaret Coyle."

  "Margaret Coyle!" Mrs. Parry said, in a tone of surprise.

  "Yes, Margaret Coyle; and I hope in mercy, it isn't her that you've got."

  "Yes, it is no other than her," Mrs. Parry replied, despondingly.

  "O dear! O dear! Then you've got your hands full! Why, unless she has changed a good deal since I had her, she is not able to do a single thing as it ought to be done. And, besides, she is slovenly and dirty. You'd better send her off at once, for you'll never make any thing out of her."

  "She seems at least willing, and good tempered," urged Mrs. Parry, in her favor.

  "Not by any means. I found her dilatory and unmanageable; and she is the only servant who ever gave me a saucy word."

  "Ah me!" sighed Mrs. Parry, "It's a hard case, truly! Why can't domestics feel some sense of justice towards the families in which they reside?"

  "Because they are a low, unprincipled set!" Mrs. Coster replied, warmly; "and I don't know that we ever need expect much more from them. They're generally envious of their mistresses, and ashamed of the idea of being servants, and think,

  After Mrs. Coster went away, Mrs. Parry seemed very much dispirited, and remarked to her husband, that she was afraid all her hope of making any thing out of Margaret was vain.

  "That may be," Mr. Parry remarked. "But it does not at all follow, it seems to me, from what Mrs. Coster has said. I am confident that she never gave Margaret a fair trial. And I am farther inclined to think, that she worried the poor girl until she was roused, and answered her back in a spirit of offended pride."

  "Yes, that may be very true. I never thought that Mrs. Coster had much feeling for her domestics. She expects them to do just so, and never spares them if there is any deviation from her rules. Nor does she think it required of her to consider them at all, except as necessary appendages to her family."

  "That is the great error," Mr. Parry replied. "So long as the majority of people look upon domestics as necessary evils, so long will the majority of people find it hard work to get along with them. Nor is this kind of trouble confined

  "I cannot deny it," Mrs. Parry replied, seriously, "nor can I get away from the conviction, that I am far from being innocent in the matter myself. We are apt to take it for granted that those under us are also below us in feeling;—that they are not entitled to the same consideration that those are whose condition in life is equal or superior to our own."

  "That, certainly, is a great fault. It may often happen, too, that the poor girl who is forced to go into the kitchen, is one, the promise of whose early years was far superior to that of the individual for whom she is compelled to labor. And she may, also, have as acute feelings, and be possessed of as

  The conversation thus commenced, continued for some time; but we will not weary the reader by repeating it farther; enough has been given to show the principles it involved.

  During the next morning, Mrs. Parry gave up her time to Margaret, and endeavored, in a kind manner, to instruct her in the duties she had assumed. The poor girl seemed very anxious to learn, and evinced a quickness of apprehension that disappointed Mrs. Parry agreeably. To see how far she recollected the directions given on the day previous, the same kind of dinner was prepared. Margaret was at fault but once or twice, and when the omission was pointed out, she said she would try and never forget that again; and said it so earnestly, that it was evident she would be likely to keep the thing in her memory. Much to the surprise and pleasure of Mrs. Parry, in the course of a week, Margaret could get along very well in the kitchen, carefully continuing to do every thing in the exact way she had been told that it ought to be done. Sometimes, when Mrs. Parry was in a less calm and pleasant state of mind than usual, and any thing would go wrong, or Margaret would

  "Misfortunes, ma'am. When my father and mother died, and the landlord rented our cottage and acre of ground to another family, me and the two little children were turned out, to do the best we could. We had always had a plenty of good potatoes, and milk, and oatmeal bread, and we were as happy as the greatest in the land. But now the

  "Well, Jamie, he didn't last long. He died as Catherine had, from want of good food and kind treatment. I saw the last of him, too, and then it seemed as if a great load had been taken off my heart. I knew they had both gone where they would be happy. Some time after this my brother, who had been in this country a few years, sent me over some money, and asked me to join him, saying that he would take care of me. I came out of course. But, ma'am, when I got here, he had died with the fever. I felt like I should have to give up. I was in a strange country, and among strangers. But they told me at the tavern where I was, that I would turn to as a chambermaid, they would give me four dollars a month. I was glad enough to do so. But I did not like it much, especially when I got acquainted with one or two of the girls, who were employed in families, and who said it was so much pleasanter there. I didn't like the exposure of a tavern, and wanted badly to get into the quiet of a private house. At last, one of my acquaintances told me she could get me a place as a cook. 'But I didn't know how to cook,' I told her. 'O, never

  "O yes, Margaret," replied Mrs. Parry, "you have improved very much; and if you continue to improve, and are as willing and good tempered

  "Indeed ma'am, and it was!" Margaret said, looking up with surprise.

  "I know her very well, Margaret, and she is, in many things, a kind-hearted woman. But she is sometimes thoughtless. She, I suppose, expected to find in you what she wanted, a good cook, and was very much disappointed, and consequently out of patience, when she found that you could do nothing that you had engaged to do."

  Here the conversation ended between Mrs. Parry and her new cook, for whom, after hearing her brief history, felt added kindness, and also an increased degree of confidence in her. Nor was she disappointed. From, apparently, the most unpromising materials, she came into the possession of a domestic, through kindness and consideration for her, who was ever faithful, and thence invaluable. And even more than this—she had been led to see in herself and correct it, that which, while it influenced her, would have made it impossible even to retain, for any length of time, a good servant. That particular disposition

  When I laid aside the magazine, far different feelings were active than when I took it up. My anger had passed away. I stood on a different position-point, and saw, of course, all things around me in different relations. At that moment the time-piece on the mantel struck the half-hour. I got up, and went calmly into the kitchen. Hannah looked earnestly into my face as I entered. I understood the reason of this. She had felt my harsh, dissatisfied manner towards her, and it had made her unhappy.

  "Hannah," I said, in a mild, encouraging voice, as soon as I had ascertained, which I did in a moment

  As I said this, I took up the poker and cleared the fire of an accumulation of ashes, examined the dampers, and found that they were all wrong; re-arranged the dishes that were cooking, so as to bring them into more advantageous positions, and then showed Hannah what I had done, explaining to her, in a kind, familiar way, the whole action of the cook-stove. The effect of this surprised me. The dull, awkward girl, brightened up, and showed a degree of intelligence that I had not supposed she possessed. By remaining with her, and instructing her in a kind way, I was enabled to have dinner, well cooked, by a quarter past two o'clock—and it so happened that my husband did not come in until just that time.

  Encouraged by the good effects produced by my change of manner towards the new cook, I went frequently into the kitchen for the next three or four days, and found Hannah a very different kind of person from what I had supposed. She was a little awkward, it is true, but this arose from

  Thus I continued for some time, until I had trained her quite to my liking. The consequence is, that now I have a domestic who is to me almost invaluable. Hannah is clean, tidy, and industrious, and always to the minute with her meals. Had I not adopted the judicious course that proved so successful, I should not have made any thing out of her, for she will not bear harsh treatment. It wounds her feelings, confuses her mind, and excites her opposition. But kindness softens her, as wax is softened before a gentle heat.

  But enough for the present. I throw these few leaves, upon which are written some brief passages of my own experience in domestic life, upon the waves, trusting that they may do good—that my countrywomen may gather from them hints to make both themselves and all who look up to them happier. The power to do good, every one possesses. If we cannot reform the world in a moment, we can begin the work by reforming ourselves

THE END