The married life of the "happy pair" commenced. First one, and then another "toddling wee thing" presented itself in the young mother's household, and the mother's cares and responsibilities multiplied. But, to tell the truth, Elizabeth, though a beauty, was not a very good manager. She could sit at the head of her husband's table, and do the honors of the house to perfection. But look into her wardrobe, into her drawers, into her kitchen, and you would say at once, there was the want of the managing head, and the ready hand. A good housewife, like a good poet, is "born, not made"--_nascitur non fit_. It's true. There are some women whom no measure of drilling can convert into good housewives. They may lay down systems, cultivate domesticity, study tidying, spending, house-drilling, as an art, and yet they can not acquire it. To others it comes without effort, without consciousness, as a kind of second nature. They are "to the manner born." They don't know how it is themselves. Yet their hand seems to shed abroad order, regularity, and peace, in the household. Under their eye, and without any seeming effort on their part, every thing falls into its proper place, and every thing is done at its proper time. Elizabeth did not know how it was; yet, somehow, she could not get servants like any body else (how often imperfect management is set down to account of "bad servants!"); she could not get things to go smoothly; there was always something "getting across;" the house got out of order; dinners were not ready at the right time, and then the husband grew querulous; somehow, the rooms could not be kept very tidy, for the mistress of the household having her hands full of children, of course she "could not attend to every thing;" and, in short, poor Elizabeth's household was fast getting into a state of muddle.
Now, husbands don't like this state of things, and so, the result of it was, that Elizabeth's husband, though not a bad-natured man, sometimes grew cross and complaining, and the beautiful wife found that her husband had "a temper"--as who has not? And about the same time, the husband found that his wife was "no manager," notwithstanding her good looks. Though his wife studied economy, yet he discovered that, somehow, she got through a deal of money, and yet there was little comfort got in exchange for it. Things were evidently in a bad way, and going wrong entirely. What might have been the end, who knows? But, happily, at this juncture, aunt Jane, the children's pet, the "little droll old maid," appeared on the stage; and though sisters are not supposed to be of good omen in other sisters' houses, certainly it must be admitted that, in this case, the "old maid" at once worked a wonderful charm.