PREFACE. THIS work was first designed and undertaken at the earnest solicitations of two young ladies who were about to enter upon the important duties of married life, and, at their suggestion, the book proposed was to serve as a Counsellor, from the outset of their career, through all the various arrangements of a well-regulated household. This, doubtless, my readers will say was a very daring and difficult undertaking. And so indeed it was. Yet when the motives are weighed, the writer cannot but hope her lenient judges will be inclined to view the undertaking as more the result of...