As to what they do there it is not very easy to say, but I believe they clear-starch a little, and iron a little, and sit in a rocking-chair, and sew a great deal.

I always observed that the ladies who boarded, wore more elaborately worked collars and petticoats than any one else.

The plough is hardly a more blessed instrument in America than the needle.

How could they live without it?
But time and the needle wear through the longest morning, and happily the American morning is not very long, even though they breakfast at eight.
It is generally about two o'clock that the boarding gentlemen meet the boarding ladies at dinner.

Little is spoken, except a whisper between the married pairs.