entitled to the high privilege of calling and leading oe the first dance and no little indignation was felt at the lower end of the room when any of the leading couples retired from their duties and did not condescend to dance up and down the whole set we may rejoice that these causes of irritation no longer exist and that if such feelings as jealousy and discontent ever touch celestial in the modern ball room they must arise from different and more sources i am tempted to add a little about the difference of personal habits it may be asserted as a general truth that less was left to the charge and discretion of servants and more was done or by the masters and with regard to the it is i believe generally understood that at the time to which i refer a hundred years ago they took a personal part in the higher branches of as well as in the of home made and of for domestic which are nearly allied to the same art ladies did not disdain to spin tha thread of which the household linen was woven some ladies liked to wash with their own hands their choice china after breakfast or tea in one of my earliest child s books a little girl the daughter of a gentleman is taught by her mother to make her own bed before leaving her chamber it was not so much that they had not servants to do all these things for them as that they took an a of jane au ten interest in such occupations and it must be borne in mind how many sources of interest enjoyed by this generation were then closed or � ery opened to ladies a small of them cared much for literature or science music was not a common and ing was a still accomplishment in some form or other was their chief employment but i doubt whether the rising generation are equally aware how much gentlemen also did for in those times and whether some things that i can mention will not be a surprise to them two homely were held in higher estimation in my early days than they are now the master s eye mi es the horse fat and if you would be well served serve yourself some gentlemen took pleasure in being their own performing all the scientific and some of the manual work themselves well dressed young men of my acquaintance who had their coat from a london tailor would always brush their evening suit themselves rather than it to the carelessness of a rough servant and to the risks of dirt and in the kitchen for in those days halls were not common in the houses of the clergy and the smaller country gentry it was quite natural that should have contrasted the magnificence of the offices at abbey with the few in her father s a young man who expected to have his things packed or for him by a servant when he travelled would have been a of jane thought fine or lazy when my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot his first lesson was how to clean my own gun it was thought on the evening of a hunting day to turn out after dinner lantern in hand and visit the stable to ascertain that the horse had been well cared for this was of the more importance because previous to the introduction of about the year it was a difficult and tedious work to make a long hunter dry and comfortable and was often very imperfectly done of course such things were not practised by those who had and and plenty of well trained servants but they were practised by many who were gentlemen and whose occupying the same position in life may perhaps be astonished at being told that such things were i have drawn pictures for which my own experience or what i heard from others in my youth have supplied the materials of course they cannot be universally such details varied in various circles and were changed very gradually nor can i pretend to tell how much of what i have said is descriptive of the family life at in jane s youth i am sure that the ladies there had nothing to do with the mysteries of the pot or the preserving pan but it is probable that their way of life differed a little from ours and would have appeared to us more homely it may be that useful articles which would not now be produced in drawing rooms were hemmed and marked and in the old fashioned parlor a of but all this only the outer life these was as much and refinement of mind aa now with probably more studied courtesy and ceremony of manner to whilst certainly in that family literary pursuits not neglected i remember to hare heard of only two little things from modern customs one was that on hunting mornings the young men usually took their hasty breakfast in the kitchen the early hour at which hounds then met may account for this and probably the custom began if it did not end when they were boys for they hunted at an early age in a sort of way upon any pony or donkey that they could procure or in de of such luxuries on foot i have been told that sir francis when seven years old bought on his own account h must be supposed with his father s permission a pony for a guinea and a half and after riding him with great success for two seasons sold him for a guinea more one may wonder how the child could have so much money and how the animal could have been obtained for so little the same authority me that his first cloth suit was made from a scarlet habit which according to the fashion 