Mrs. J. R. , who had never been wont to do too much at home as Miss B. W. , was under the constant necessity of referring for advice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British Family Housewife , which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the table and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring over the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete British Housewife , however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means an expert Briton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue, and sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose in the Kamskatchan language. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would suddenly exclaim aloud, “Oh you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that? You must have been drinking!” And having made this marginal note, would try the Housewife again, with all her dimples screwed into an expression of profound research.