Household hints

A capital motto to be hung over the kitchen door is this : " Thou desirest truth in the inward parts " ; and the woman who, when she expected company to tea, always went the first thing and washed the cellar stairs, had tendencies in the right direction ; she did it, she said, to "settle her mind," and there is no doubt whatever that it was a source of deep and heartfelt satisfaction to her, as she sat in the parlor and entertained her guests with sprightly conversation, or presided with ease and dignity at her daintilydressed table, to reflect that the hidden and gracious virtues symbolized by clean cellar stairs were hers also. A habit of thoroughness is something which most people need to cultivate with assiduity, and in no profession is it more needed or does it count for more, dear housekeepers, who read this, than in ours. There is an unmistakable air about a perfectly neat house which is felt by all those who come into it ; there is no use in trying to make it appear that neatness and order are characteristics of your home unless they are. There is reason to think that some women are in this matter content to seem without caring to be neat, but it is a very transparent deceit. " If there is to be any dirt in the house/' said the best housekeeper I ever knew, "let it be where I can see it ; let it lie on the parlor tables and chairs rather than be allowed to remain under the beds, and in corners where it will become rich soil for the development of germs of disease." There is a great difference between a disorderly housekeeper and an untidy one ; there are often, cogent reasons why a woman can not possibly always have her house in the order she. loves ; it may be the one severe trial of her life that she can not carry out her ideas in this respect, and she may be deserving of credit for accepting the situation with equanimity, especially if, as is frequently the case, she must also be obliged to endure the injustice of being rated a failure as a housekeeper, when in reality she is irreproachable so far as neatness is concerned. This is certainly of paramount importance ; it is a truth sadly forced home sometimes, that life and death wait upon the discharge of what appear to be simple and even unimportant matters. ABOUT GOOD COOKS. "Good cooks are born, not made," I heard a lady exclaim the other night at a tea party. An animated discussion followed, but no one agreed unreservedly with the first speaker ; one thought that a woman may learn to cook almost everything well, but would probably be obliged to omit one or two things from the ordinary bill of fare furnished in most of our homes ; for example, she said she could cook all that was considered essential in her family, with the exception of raised biscuit ; fried cakes was the rock upon which another foundered, while a third remarked, after the manner of a mental album, that her Mte noir was pie crust. All these ladies claimed that they had tried repeatedly; they had proceeded after the most approved methods, but failed to produce good results. They sought in a playful way to account for it by thinking that they