A "MUDDLE" HOUSEHOLD.

BY MRS. C. A. SOULE,

the wheel again. Why didn't you tell me of it?" turning to the chambermaid, who was just putting down my satchel.

We hope our compositor will not think" Indeed, ma'am, I didn't know it. It we have made a mistake, and written surely wasn't so yesterday when I swept muddle, when we meant model. For if and dusted." Well, it's off now, that's he should, and our proof reader do not cor- pretty certain; and you must help me to rect by the MS., our article would be in remember to ask Mr. D- to fix it when as bad a cilemma as a certain discourse he comes in to dinner." A model housewhich we once heard preached, of which a keeper would have sent for the step-ladcritic said, that if the text had been down der and fixed it herself at once, but this with the plague, the sermon would never muddle housekeeper merely rolled up the have caught the infection. We use the linen, and fastened it as best she could word muddle in its English sense, as a fa- with a pin. She went to the wash-stand, miliar term for "disorder in all its branch- Why, where's the soap gone to, Hanes. There are muddle churches, mud- nah? "Indeed, ma'am, I'm sure I dle schools, muddle factories, muddle don't know. It was there yesterday." counting-rooms, muddle hospitals, muddle" Well, it's very strange what could have armies, and so on, ad infinitum. But no kind of muddle is more offensive than that which prevails in an ill conducted household.

We once spent a week in a muddle home dear, dear, the memory of it always gives us the blues! We accepted the invitation reluctantly, for our friend had been a fellow school-mate, and we had some reminiscences of not the most agreeable character; but — well we found ourself on her door-step one sunny summer morning, about eleven o'clock. Muddle was written all over the front door, in greasy and sooty finger-marks, and sundry scratches and bruises, and betrayed, too, in the dull and tarnished plate, bell, and door-knob. Muddle was written all over my friend's figure, as she came rushing down the staircase, to give us a kindly greeting. Her hair was flying every which way, her shoes were down at the heel, and there was such a monstrous hole in each stocking that I could not fail to perceive as she tripped before me on the way to my chamber, that her feet had the fear of hydrophobia. Her dress was a soiled and ragged silk, shielded in part by a slitted calico apron, while in singular incongruity, her neck was adorned by an elegant French worked collar.

The room into which she ushered me, was very dark. She hurriedly pulled the tassle of one of the shades, but the yellow Holland never stirred. "Dear me," she exclaimed pettishly, "that cord is off

66

become of it-Ó, I remember now, I sent
Georgie for it when I was washing the
baby this morning, because I couldn't find
my own. Run and fetch it." A model
housekeeper would have sent out at once
and bought a fresh cake for her friend's
use, but this muddle one merely handed
me the thin slip that had already done
duty in the nursery, and if you will be-
lieve it, that bit of soap travelled back and
forth every day thereafter from
my cham-
ber to hers and hers to mine. I had sev-
eral other muddle experiences before I
finished dressing, but let them go.

"I want to show you my children," she said proudly, as she preceded me to the nursery.Georgie goes to school, but here are little Carrie and Johnny, and Minnie, the pet. Aren't they sweet?" "Indeed they are," I responded, and not at a venture, either, for their faces and hands were so daubed with molasses cake and sugar candy, that it would have puz zled a painter to have told whether their skin were brunette or blonde. A model mother would have seen that they were decently washed before she exhibited them, but this muddle one contented herself with washing them after the show was over. I sat down in a cosy looking sewing chair, but I found myself flat on the floor. "I ought to have told you," she said, in a sorry tone, that that chair is a broken one. I keep it round because it's handy for Georgie to play wagon with." I ac cepted the apology in the spirit in which it

66

was uttered, but couldn't help thinking that if it had been another friend of mine, the chair would either have been repaired or put so far out of the way, that a guest's limbs wouldn't be endangered by its ricketty legs. I took another seat and looked about me. Muddle stared at me in the cracked toilet mirror, in the shivered window panes, in the ewer without a handle, in the broken saucer that served as soap tray, in the gashed wash bowl, in the frayed towels, in the smutty cradle linen, in the greasy carpet, in the battered furniture, and in the wrecks of countless toys that strewed the floor from one end to the other, the horses being headless, tailless and legless, the carts having neither wheels nor tongues; the dolls looking as if they had been to the war; "Noah's ark" having stranded on some mysterious breaker, and a train of cars having been smashed by some sleepy brakeman.

-

We went down to dinner after Mr. Dhad waited twenty minutes by his watch. Muddle gazed at me from that table --first, in the soiled damask, then in the cracked and chipped china, and afterwards in the ill-cooked viands. As I unfolded my napkin, I saw marks of previous use all over it. The quick eye of my host saw it, too, and he gravely ordered the girl to bring me a fresh one. "I should have thought you would have known better than to have given a guest such a one," said the mistress, angrily; "and why didn't you put on a clean cloth, too?" "You ought to see to these things a little yourself," said the husband, rebukingly. "I can't be all over the house at once," she answered, snappishly.

He lifted the ladie-it was a china to serve the soup. The handle came up, minus a bowl. How's this," he said to the girl. "Indeed, sir, I don't know; it wasn't broke when I put it in the tureen." 'I suppose not,' he said, and catching my eye, he added, with quiet humor, "the heat probably dissolved the connection we have many such dissolving views in this house."

"Bring me the steel," he said, as his eye glanced at the carver's edge. The girl hurried to the china closet; I heard

The dinner, such as it was, was eaten, and Mrs. Drang for the dessert. "There isn't any pudding or pie, to-day, ma'am." "No pudding or pie? "No, ma'am; you didn't order any. "But she might have known I wanted a dessert when I had company. It's the strangest thing in the world how you all expect me to think of everything.' She looked distressed.

Fortunately I can supply the deficiency," said Mr. D--, good-naturelly; and, stepping into the hall, he returned with a small basket of delicious peaches. "I'm used to these little disappointments," he observed quietly, " and generally fortify myself against them."

There, that will do for particulars, and if such was my experience during the first four hours of my visit, you may guess what I endured before the week was out. With everything to make them happy and comfortable, an ample income, a commodious house, an abundance of good temper and good health, bright and handsome children, plenty of help, they were unhappy a good deal of the time, and uncomfortable the year round. The cause? Muddle, emphatically muddle. The most incredible things were constantly taking place. Crockery slipped out of the cook's hands, not when she let them go, but always when she was holding on to them, "just as tight as ever she could." Vases fell off the mantel, and bottles off the dressing-bureau, when every one was sure they were set back so far that they must have moved themselves for the very purpose of being shivered to atoms Windows were broken, though no one ever went near them; hanging lamps came in

[We publish the following article on a very grave theme, without however fully endorsing all the views of our correspondent. There are certainly some positions assumed by him sufficiently startling and which perhaps cannot be successfully controverted. Still we have so much confi

two, though nobody had ever seen them even oscillate, and mirrors were cracked when no one had looked into them for years. Locks got hampered, stools came unglued, nails worked themselves out, paint and varnish rubbed themselves off, chairs dislocated their arms, tables broke their legs, while other objects, too cow-dence in the elastic recuperative powers of ardly for self-inflictions, but equally perverse in spirit, chose the very moment when their presence would have been most desirable, to get lost, that is, to hide in some out-of-the-way corner, to which no living soul had ever had access, and in which consequently no member of the family would ever think of looking. O, muddle, muddle, thou art indeed a love-destroyer, and a comfort-killer!

WALKING AMONG THE SHADOWS.

BY DELL A. CAULKINS.

When in life's low vallies the coming shadows gather fast,

the young Titan-our country-as to feel little apprehension that the present troublous times once ended, it will not go on again with a vigor and determination all the more invincible for its present pause in the onward march to wealth and greatness. Besides the necessity of economy and thrift will do us all good. Ten or twenty thousand dollar balls and parties, whether in the White House at Washington, or in the palatial mansions of New York and Boston, may be omitted for a few years, and no one really suffer in consequence. Industry, long forgotten by

And darkening clouds drift slowly, to the sad-many, will be cultivated once more among

ly mo ning blast; When the soul sits grieving dumbly o'er hopes forever flown,

Affrighted that sweet mem'ries into spectre

forms have grown; When athwart the dim horizon hang curtains The night that knows no gleaming of sun or starry light,

of the night,

O, then, amid the darkness, when the storm
comes madly down,
We fain would drop the heavy cross and grasp

the shining crown:

Forgetting, weak, frail mortals, that He who

trod the sea,

Is e'en with us, as once with those, on stormy
Galilee;

And tho' His form we may not see, as did the

favored few,

True faith should make His presence near to e'en our humble view;

And if we may not hear the tones that whispered" Peace, be still!"

That earnest faith will make our hearts submissive to his will.

And when in life's low vallies the shadows gather dim,

While we deem woe's bitter chalice is filling to

the brim:

The darkest clouds may brighten, when re-
O'er their darkness streams the glory of our

Father's changeless love;

And our hearts made pure by sorrow shall exultant throb at last,

our women and girls, and they will grow healthy and ruddy as a reward. Plainer fare will be adopted, and brown bread found to be very wholesome, after long indulgence in comfits and confections, and cold water a great restorer, after too deeply tasting the wine. Indeed, the moral constitution of the country needs toning up by a little hard fare and the necessity of roughing it. So let us all take cour age and meet whatever hardships lie before us with stout hearts and cheerful faces, willing to endure much so that the integrity of our precious government be served, and the great evil removed.-ED.]

OUR PALACES.

pre

What to do with them is a question for the next ten or twenty years. Fortunes are diminished or gone; and more will go. And those which remain will be taxed, to pay, not for the glory of war, but for a war which demonstrates the folly of politi theless the cost of it is great, and must be cians and of the sovereign people. Never paid; and may leave small rents for colossal stores and the dwellings of merchant princes.

In Venice twenty thousand dollars has With a sense of coming triumph when life's bought a palace whose original cost was a

shadows all are past.

quarter of a million, and which was little

impaired by time, and almost proof against decay. Another was purchased by speculators, who proceeded to pull it down for the sake of selling the piles on which it was built, but the Austrian government prohibited the vandalism, and bought the palace for a post-office. Small people live in the palaces of Venetian grandees, and pay small rents; and nearly half the renting, a safe investment for the dependence is paid to the government for taxes. Such of widows, orphans, and superanuated is the effect, more or less enduring, of in- men. This is worth considering, before terruption and prostration of commerce. our palaces become unfashionable, and we If the commerce has gone another way, build more. like that of Venice, the effect is permanent; if it is interrupted by civil war and repudiation of debts, like that of New York and other cities, it may recover; but for a time the rents must accord with wrecks of capital, and the taxes must accord with the ravage and waste of war.

we need not doubt the permanency; that is, a national debt, in which we may invest what we have, with whatever confidence we can feel in a sovereign people, whose will is the highest law, and who undoubtedly will do as they please, as to the payment of interest. In England, they deem their national debt a national bless

Those which have been built to rent will disappoint their owners, perhaps ruin them; but those which have been built for the use of their owners, and paid for, may be better than the money spent in shows less durable. If they have been designed by architects of taste, they may be valuable when the country has recovered; but if by fashionable architects, they will be like the work of fashionable tailors and milliners--of little value in a few years; and such is the probable fate of most of them; in fact, many buildings, within twenty years of their erection, have been condemned for sordidness of style, and pulled down.

Probably before we see the end of our difficulties, it will be time to consider whether, instead of a palace, a rich man might not better secure a permanent income for himself and his children; one that could not be clutched by mortgagees, in times like the present. The ups and downs of fortune, especially for those who buy and sell on credit, are so sudden and anexpected that we should feel more happy in knowing that we had security for the necessaries of life in future, than in outshining our old friends at present.

But to know that we have security that is difficult. Who at this time can feel confident of the future value of any kind of property, or of the permanency of any institutions. Of one thing, however,

J. K. F.

[The following pretty article from an old friend, is presented to the readers of the Repository, who are Sabbath School teachers, as a pleasant interlude for Sabbath School exhibitions.-ED.]

THE FOUNTAIN OF PEACE.

BY MARY S. LATHAM.

[SCENE 1ST.-A group of maidens wreathing flowers. They sing]

Come, come away to the rosy bower,

Where the summer sun shines bright;
Come, where the dew lies on each flower,
Sparkling in the golden light;
Where the crimson rose is blushing,
As it looks in beauty up,
Where the fair and fragrant lily,
Timid lifts its snowy cup.

Come, come away where smiles are breaking
Over lips and cheeks of rose;
Come where new joys are ever waking,
Where the heart no sorrow knows;
Where light feet are gaily dancing

To sweet music's witching tone.
Where glad voices swell the chorus,
Where each hour is music's own,

1st maiden.-Come, sisters, we must finish our wreath, and go to join the dance. Carnot, the handsome young shepherd will play for us to-night. 2d maiden-0, how merry our last night's dance was. I dreamed of it when I slept.

3d maiden. So did I, and a droll dream I had, too. I dreamed that I was dancing and could not stop; my feet went of themselves. I was tired enough, as you may fancy, and I was glad to awake.

4th maiden. And I dreamed of gathering flowers, and I thought that as fast as I touched them, they dropped into pieces.