Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/62

54 no more about cooking a dinner than the man in the moon.”

“Couldn’t she have done it under your direction?” inquired the husband, very coolly.

“Under my direction? Goodness! I should like to see a dinner cooked under my direction.”

“Why so?” asked the husband in surprise. “You certainly do not mean that you cannot cook a dinner.”

“I certainly do, then,” replied his wife. “How should I know any thing about cooking?”

The husband was silent, but his look of astonishment perplexed and worried his wife.

“You look very much surprised,” she said, after a moment or two had elapsed.

“And so I am,” he answered, “as much surprised as I should be at finding the captain of one of my ships unacquainted with navigation. Don’t know how to cook, and the mistress of a family! Jane, if there is a cooking school any where in the city, go to it, and complete your education, for it is deficient in a very important particular.”

The wife was hurt and offended at the words and manner of her husband; but she soon got over this. The next time the cook went away, there was no trouble about the dinner.