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Punctuality in tlie Houseliolcl. 
Punctuality is a virtue which the house¬ 
wife must cultivate, that she may set a 
good example to her young servants. To 
be up be-tiines, to dress neatly for break¬ 
fast, not going about the house slipshod, 
with hair untidy, and muffled up in a din¬ 
gy dressing-gown; to confer with the cook 
about dinner and take a look round the 
larder at the regular hour; to be in read¬ 
iness for all the meals, is the role of the 
woman who aspires to take her place among 
wise and notable matrons. If a mistress 
is always down late for breakfast, the ser¬ 
vants will fall into the habit of being late 
also. The cook will sav, “If I cook the 
eggs and bacon, they will only get cold;” 
the housemaid will put off laying the 
cloth until the last minute, while she hur¬ 
ries through the rest of the work that is 
behind hand on account of her late rising. 
So the master comes down to a lonesome 
room, with the cloth half laid, and waits 
patiently or not, according to his nature, 
for the eggs to be boiled and the bacon to 
be fried, while the spoons and forks are 
thrown hurriedly all askew on the table. 
Then he swallows half a breakfast, reading 
; his newspaper, and rushes off to catch his 
train, may be finding himself just too late, 
to his great annoyance, and in so flurried a 
state that heart, digestion, or temper inva¬ 
riably suffers. When he comes home at 
night, the same disorder reigns—mistress 
is out; cook, taking advantage of her ab¬ 
sence, and knowing well that dinner need 
not be up to time, has scarcely begun to 
prepare it; housemaid possibly putting the 
last touches to her toilet; the fire low, the 
gas unlighted, what wonder that he comes 
to regard his office as the pleasanter place, 
and that his books there engross his mind, 
to the exclusion of all home thoughts? 
Late, irregular meals are often the cause of 
indigestion, which is synonymous with 
bad temper; and the wife who does not 
manage that her husband has his break¬ 
fast and dinner on time only deserves her 
fate if she sits down ojjposite to a face low¬ 
ering with ill-humor rather than radient 
with contentment. Let her be in time 
herself and her servants will soon learn 
that they dare not be behind. The omelet 
will be hot on the breakfast table, the 
cloth neatly laid. At dinner time the 
hearth will be swept up, the room cheer¬ 
fully bright, while the meat will be sent up 
to table not lialf-cooked, with potatoes 
like bullets as an accompaniment, but in 
an eatable state, sweet and juicy, and the 
entremets, up to the moment, will be light, 
wholesome and tasty. Unpunctuality is 
waste of time, and waste of time is waste 
of money .—The American Cultivator. 
REMINDING THE HEN. 
“It’s well I ran into the garden,” 
Said Eddie, his face ail aglow; 
“For what do you think, mamma, happened? 
You never will guess it, I know. 
“The little brown hen was there clucking; 
‘Cut-cut!’ she’d say, quick as a wink, 
Then ‘cut-cut’ again, only slower; 
And then she would stop short and think. 
“And then she would say it all over, 
She did look so mad and so vext; 
For mamma, do you know, she’d forgotten 
The word she ought to cluck next. 
“So/said, ‘Ca-daw-cut,’ ‘Ca-datc-cut,’ 
As loud and as strong as I could; 
And she looked round at me very thankful, 
I tell you it made her feel good. 
“Then she flapped, and said ‘Cut-cut-ca-da tc-cut; 
She remembered just how it went then. 
But it’s well I ran into the garden— 
She might never have clucked right again!” 
—Bessie Chandler in St. Nicholas. 
Graduating Costumes. 
The usual discussion about graduation 
costumes has begun, and this year the plea 
is advanced that as a white frock is a neces¬ 
sity to a young woman it is as well that she 
should have it when she leaves school, and 
base is the slave who pays for it, if he make 
any objectien to so doing. This is very 
pretty in sound, but in truth there are a 
great many girls whose parents can afford 
to maintain them while the city educates 
them, who will have no more use for a 
white frock during the two or three years 
of their lives following graduation than 
they will have for a suit of sables, and for 
whom one might be demanded with as 
much propriety as the other. 
