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“There! a woman’s work is never done,” said Mrs. James.”I thought, for once, I was through; but just look at that lamp, now!it will not burn, and I must go and spend half an hour over it.”

“Don’t you wish you had never been married?” said Mr. James, with a good-natured laugh.

“Yes”–rose to her lips, but was checked by a glance at the group upon the floor, where her husband was stretched out, and two little urchins with sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks were climbing and tumbling over him, as if they found in this play the very essence of fun.

She did say, “I should like the good, without the evil, if I could have it.”

“You have no evils to endure,” replied her husband.

“That is just all you gentlemen know about it. What would you think, if you could not get an uninterrupted half hour to yourself, from morning till night?I believe you would give up trying to do anything.”

“There is no need of that; all you want, is system. If you arranged your work systematically, you would find that you could command your time.”

“Well,” was the reply, “all I wish is, that you could just follow me around for one day, and see what I have to do. If you could reduce it all to system, I think you would show yourself a genius.”

When the lamp was trimmed, the conversation was resumed. Mr. James had employed the “half hour,” in meditating on this subject.

“Wife,” said he, as she came in, “I have a plan to propose to you, and I wish you to promise me beforehand, that you will accede to it. It is to be an experiment, I acknowledge, but I wish it to have a fair trial. Now to please me, will you promise?”

Mrs. James hesitated. She felt almost sure that his plan would be quite impracticable, for what does a man know of a woman’s work?Yet she promised.

“Now I wish you,” said he, “to set apart two hour of every day for your own private use. Make a point of going to your room, and locking yourself in; and also make up your mind to let the work which is not done, go undone, if it must. Spend this time on just those things which will be most profitable to yourself. I shall bind you to your promise for one month–then, if it has proved a total failure, we will devise something else.”

“When shall I begin?”

“To-morrow.”

The morrow came. Mrs. James had chosen the two hours before dinner as being, on the whole, the most convenient and the least liable to interruption. They dined at one o’clock. She wished to finish her morning work, get dressed for the day, and enter her room at eleven.

Hearty as were her efforts to accomplish this, the hour of eleven found her with her work but half done; yet, true to her promise, she left all, retired to her room and locked the door.

With some interest and hope, she immediately marked out a course of reading and study, for these two precious hours: then arranging her table, her books, pen and paper, she commenced a schedule of her work with much enthusiasm. Scarcely had she dipped her pen in ink, when she heard the tramping of little feet along the hall, and then a pounding at her door.

“Mamma! mamma! I cannot find my mittens, and Hannah is going to slide without me.”

“Go to Amy, my dear; mamma is busy.”

“So Amy busy too; she say she can’t leave baby.”

The child began to cry, still standing close to the fastened door. Mrs. James knew the easiest, and indeed the only way of settling the trouble, was to go herself and hunt up the missing mittens. Then a parley must be held with Frank, to induce him to wait for his sister, and the child’s tears must be dried, and little hearts must be all set right before the children went out to play; and so favorable an opportunity must not be suffered to slip, without impressing on young minds the importance of having a “place for everything, and everything in its place.”This took time; and when Mrs. James returned to her study, her watch told her that halfher portion had gone. Quietly resuming her work, she was endeavoring to mend her broken train of thought, when heavier steps were heard in the hall, and the fastened door was once more besieged. Now, Mr. James must be admitted.