“_My_ experience of ministers has convinced me that, with respect to worldly matters, they are an extremely thoughtless, improvident race; and the machinery of _work_, indispensable to the producing of comforts, always contrives to get on ‘the blind side’ of them. Mr. S—— seemed to imagine that shining shirt-bosoms and spotless cravats grew on trees, or were fished-up, unharmed, from the depths of the sea, for every week his astonishment at Biddy’s failures was indescribable.
“Anxious to put an end to this perpetual state of surprise, I went into the kitchen to oversee the girl’s performances—knowing about as much of the matter as she did. Her request, ‘and would ye plaze, ma’am, to be afther showin’ me,’ just meant to do it myself. The sensations that Mr. S—— experienced on finding me thus employed were almost too deep to vent themselves in words, but he positively forbade my doing it again; so, whenever I knew that he was off on some lengthy visit, I continued my mysterious occupation unsuspected; while he rejoiced at Biddy’s improvement, and in the innocence of his heart exclaimed:
“‘Don’t tell me, my dear, that these Irish cannot be taught—look at Biddy!’
“I did look at her, and encountered so hopelessly vacant a visage that I laughed to myself at his credulity.
“I was invited, rather _commanded_, to join ‘The Dorcas Society for the Relief of Indigent Females,’ which met every week, and where the members always sewed on unbleached muslin and sixpenny calico; they made me president, and in consequence I was expected, at each meeting, to take home the unfinished work and do it up during the week. I was collector for the poor—and in my rounds some gave me sixpence, some nothing, and some impudence. I was superintendent of the Sunday-school, besides teacher of a Bible-class of middle-aged young ladies who were not quite grown up. I was member of a ‘Society for the Diffusion of Useful Reading,’ which also met every week; and where, had I not been a minister’s wife, I should certainly have fallen asleep over the ‘Exhortations,’ ‘Helps,’ ‘Aids,’ and ‘Addresses,’ that were showered upon us poor women; while I wondered that nobody took the trouble to write to men.
“You must acknowledge that my time was pretty well employed; but, besides all this, I was expected to entertain innumerable visitors. Traveling clergymen always made our house their stopping-place; and it must have been conveniently on the route to almost every place in the Union; for some were going north, some east, and some west, but that was always the halting-place. Their hours of arriving were various and unexpected; but _I_ was expected to furnish banquets at the shortest notice—to drag forth inexhaustible store of linen and bedding—and throw open airy apartments that had hitherto been concealed by secret springs. Mr. S—— was firmly convinced that the house possessed the elastic properties of India-rubber, and mildly disregarded my ignorance when I asserted that it would not stretch to any extent.