Do not for a moment imagine that the domestic girl cannot be smart. She can turn herself out as bewitchingly as anybody, and the same cleverness that goes into her delicious entrÉes, capital sauces, and truly lovely afternoon tea-cakes concerns itself with the ripples of her coiffure, the correct tilt of her hat, and the deft fall of her skirt. The domestic girl need be neither plain nor dowdy. Plenty of exercise and the feeling that she is of use in the world brighten her eyes, keep her complexion clear, and give her that air of lightheartedness that should, but does not always, characterise a girl. How middle-aged is the expression that some of them wear! Both boys and girls in their early twenties have occasionally this elderly look.

Of course there is always the extreme domestic girl, who has not a soul above puddings, whose fingers show generally a trace of flour, and whose favourite light reading is recipes. She has been sketched for us pleasantly:—

“She isn’t versed in Latin, she doesn’t paint on satin,
She doesn’t understand the artful witchery of eyes;
But, oh! sure, ’tis true and certain she is very pat and pert in
Arranging the component parts of luscious pumpkin pies.
She cannot solve or twist ’em, viz., the planetary system;
She cannot tell a Venus from a Saturn in the skies;
But you ought to see her grapple with the fruit that’s known as apple,
And arrive at quick conclusions when she tackles toothsome pies.
She could not write a sonnet, and she couldn’t trim a bonnet,
She isn’t very bookish in her letter of replies;
But she’s much at home—oh, very—when she takes the juicy berry
And manipulates quite skilfully symposia in pies.”

She is well appreciated at meal-times, that girl, but she is not the liveliest of companions. Like the German girl, who is trained to housewifery and little else from her earliest years, she has a dough-like heaviness about her when other topics are started. But why should she ever be domestic only?—and with all the world before her whence to choose delightsome studies and pursuits.

Then there is the girl at the other end of the scale. Here is her portrait:—

“She can talk on evolution;
She can proffer a solution
For each problem that besets the modern brain.
She can punish old Beethoven,
Or she dallies with De Koven,
Till the neighbours file petitions and complain.
She can paint a crimson cowboy,
Or a purple madder ploughboy
That you do not comprehend, but must admire.
And in exercise athletic
It is really quite pathetic
To behold the young men round her droop and tire.
She is up in mathematics,
Engineering, hydrostatics,
In debate with her for quarter you will beg.
She has every trait that’s charming,
With an intellect alarming;
Yet she cannot, oh, she cannot, fry an egg!”

And let no maiden think that to be domestic is a bourgeois characteristic. Far from it. It is the daughters of the moneyed bourgeoisie who are the idlest and most empty-minded. They think it smart to be able to do nothing. How little they know about it! Were not our Queen’s daughters taught to cook and sew, and make themselves useful? Did not the Princesses of Wales learn scientific dress-cutting? And was not a Royal Princess, not very long ago, initiated into the mysteries of hair-dressing? There is no better judge of needlework in the kingdom than Princess Christian. Many of the designs used in the Royal School of Art Needlework are from the clever pencil of Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne. Princess Alice, mother of the present Empress of Russia, used to cut out her children’s clothes and trim their hats in the far-back days when she was Grand Duchess of Hesse, and was surrounded by the little ones. Princess Henry of Battenberg is a skilful embroidress, besides being an artist and musician. Domesticity has not proved a bar to culture in the case of any of these highly-placed women. The Empress Frederick of Germany, our Princess Royal, is one of the most intellectual and cultivated women in the world, but she is also an adept in the domestic arts. She is a sculptress, and can cleverly wield the brush, as well as her sister, the Marchioness of Lorne. So here is a shining example in high places.

And if we take a step down to Duchesses, Marchionesses, &c., we shall find that blue blood is usually associated with a taste for true British domesticity. The Duchess of Abercorn can sew beautifully. The Duchess of Sutherland can cook and make a gown. She often designs her own dresses. The Marchioness of Londonderry, one of our most famous beauties, is a utilitarian of the first water. She is one of the first authorities on lace, is a philanthropist to her pretty finger-tips, and has often taught the wives of her husband’s miners how to cook the family dinner, besides instructing them in the much neglected laws of hygiene. I might multiply examples, but these might surely suffice to show that domesticity is far from being bourgeois and by no means incompatible with ineffable smartness.

The aristocracy of wealth imitates that of birth in such matters; but, in order to do so, it has to be at least a generation old in riches. The nouveaux riches have quite other notions, and think it far beneath the dignity of their daughters to know anything about the domestic arts. Sensible millionaires.But a well-known family of millionaires, which has enjoyed the companionship of our best society for fifty or sixty years, shares its idiosyncrasies on the subject of useful education for its girls. Every one of them has been brought up as if she were obliged to earn her own living. It is left to the purse-proud and the vulgar to bring up their daughters as “fine ladies.” It is a grand mistake, in more ways than one, for idle people are never happy people.

The ideal girl is she who combines with high culture a love of the domestic and a desire to please. This last should not be so excessive as to degenerate into vanity and conceit, but should be sufficiently powerful to induce its possessor to dress attractively, keep her pretty hair at its glossiest, and be as smart and neat and up-to-date in all matters pertaining to the toilette as any of her less-useful sisters; besides cultivating those social graces that do so much to brighten life and sweeten it by making smooth the rough ways and rendering home intercourse as agreeable and pleasant as it should be. There are girls who keep all their prettinesses for the outside world, and are anything but attractive within the home. They are by no means the ideal girls.