I hope, however, there are not many girls as silly as I was then, and as I dare say I should have continued to be had I not married--I, who scorned the idea of the ordinary British matron, and regarded children and household cares with bitter disgust. And during the twenty years I have been a wife, I am always struck with wonder when I remember the imaginative, impulsive thing that was myself so long ago, and try to trace in my present self the miserable, ambitious cynic I fondly hoped was some day going to set the world on fire and blossom out as a new Thackeray or Dickens. Nothing feminine was good enough for me; I meant to beat the men or do nothing at all.
Such a girlhood as that may be of infinite service, and was, but it cannot be called a happy one; still, I think I was the exception, not the rule, therefore I ask that all who can possibly manage it will see their girls are happy as long as they are young; to give them their allowance because they should learn how to spend money, but to add a dress here and there, an ornament, a new trimming judiciously if in any way you can afford it, and go without yourself rather than allow a girl to be shabby or worry herself to death over a wearing-out garment; at the same time let her learn to do her own repairs and have lessons in dressmaking; make her happy, but at the same time let her help herself to the desired end. I hope there may never be too many daughters in the family for this allowance of 50_l._ to be an impossibility; no girl can dress really on less. If there are, she _must_ be taught early to make her own garments, and she must learn, furthermore, that she must spend far more time and thought over her clothes than is good for her, should the allowance be much less, and should she be obliged to go out into society a good deal. As I stated at first, I am not now writing for the young beginners, but for those whose children are growing up, and who have made and are making a good income; I therefore trust that what I have said about dress will be taken only by those for whom it is intended, the Angelina of ‘From Kitchen to Garret,’ poor dear, having often enough to do without much that she would have thought indispensable in the old days.