On habits and manners

oroughly into all the cracks where insects are likely to secrete themselves. If you follow this course habitually, you will have little to fear from the bugs, whose presence is a disgrace to any housekeeper, and your beds will be always sweet and fresh, a rest and comfort to those who lie down upon them. Having thus shaken up her beds before breakfast (and before I leave the subject, I want to recommend you to use hard beds rather than soft, mattresses in preference to feather beds), our housekeeper finds them well aired on her return, and proceeds at once to make them up, spreading the sheets, etc., so carefully that the bed when finished is really an ornament to the room and a temptation to tired limbs. Then she empties the slops, thoroughly washing the basins, pitchers, etc., and refilling the pitchers with fresh water, dusts and arranges the furniture and leaves the room in such order that she need have no fear of the most critical eye. The children must now be got ready for school, and this takes a little time, for their faces and hands must be washed and clean aprons or jackets put on, in order that neither they nor their teacher need have cause to be ashamed of dirt and carelessness for which their mother is responsible. After they are gone, the special work of the day, whatever it may be, sewing, baking, cleaning or ironing, may begin (except in the case of washing, which ought to be begun as early in the morning as possible), and this will go on, unless some accidental interruption occurs, until it is time to prepare for the mid-day meal, which will be dinner or luncheon, according as the father or children do or do not return at that hour. In either case, when the meal and its attendant work are done, the mother will again have two or three hours for work in the house or garden before it is time to cook the evening meal, after which there is again an hour or two after the children are put to bed (and this should be at a regular hour), for rest, amusement, visiting, etc. With a day systematized in this way, it is possible for a woman to do all the work of a small family, and to take in work in addition, though it is no doubt more desirable that she should be able to give all her time and energy directly to the care of her own family. As I have said before, there are innumerable details in housekeeping in regard to which actual instruction from a good housekeeper is almost a necessity ; but I am sure that most of you have constant opportunities to see for yourselves how to do your work properly, if you will only take advantage of them. In the matter of cleanliness, for example, you must surely have seen enough for yourselves to know that to sweep dirt into holes and corners where for the moment it is out of sight, or to throw rubbish into a pantry and shut the door, is, in no sense, cleanliness. If you are going to be clean, you must not keep your cellar noisome with decaying vegetables, or refuse of any kind ; you must not let your garret be a receptacle for the dusty, mouldy rubbish of years ; you must not let your back door be surrounded by the quickly accumulating and foul smelling dirt of the kitchen ; but you must see to it yourself that nowhere within the limits of your responsibility is there anything unclean which your hands