But, dear ladies, is that any more pronounced a fact than every wife's ownership of her husband ?--an ownership so intense and pervading that it may be said to be the controlling nerve of womanhood.

Let any one touch your right to the first place in your husband's regard, and see! Well, then, Lillie saw at a glance just what Grace was, and what her influence with her brother must be; and also that, in order to live the life she meditated, John must act under her sway, and not under his sister's; and so the resolve had gone forth, in her mind, that Grace's dominion in the family should come to an end, and that she would, as sole empress, reconstruct the state.

But, of course, she was too wise to say a word about it.
"Dear me!" she said, the next morning, when Grace proposed showing her through the house and delivering up the keys, "I'm sure I don't see why you want to show things to me.

I'm nothing of a housekeeper, you know: all I know is what I want, and I've always had what I wanted, you know; but, you see, I haven't the least idea how it's to be done.
Why, at home I've been everybody's baby.

Mamma laughs at the idea of my knowing any thing.