and then, as I have told you, it was not eatable."

The writer explained to her friend that the reason why she could not
get the butter, as well as why cook's was so bad, was on account of
the low temperature of the cream when it was put into the churn. She
then gave her plain directions how to proceed for the future, and was
gratified by receiving a note from her friend, in a couple of days,
containing her thanks for the "very plain directions;" and adding, "I
could not have thought it was so little trouble to procure _good_
butter, and shall for the future be independent of a saucy dairymaid."

I believe that a really clever servant will never give any one
particulars respecting her work. She wraps them up in an impenetrable
mystery. Like the farmers' wives, who, to our queries, gave no other
answer than, "Why, that depends," they take care that no one shall be
any the wiser for the questions asked.

The reader may safely follow the directions given in these pages; not
one has been inserted that has not been tested by the writer. To those
who are already conversant with bread-making, churning, etc., they may
appear needlessly minute; but we hope the novice may, with very little
trouble, become mistress of the subjects to which they refer.

Even if a lady does keep a sufficient number of servants to perform
every domestic duty efficiently, still it may prove useful to be able
to give instructions to one who may, from some accidental
circumstance, be called on to undertake a work to which she has been
unaccustomed.

A friend of the writer's, a lady of large fortune, and mistress of a
very handsome establishment, said, when speaking of her dairy, "My
neighborhood has the character of making very bad butter; mine is
invariably good, and I always get a penny a pound more for it at the
'shop' than my neighbors. If I have occasion to change the dairymaid,
and the new one sends me up bad butter, I tell her of it. If it occurs
the second time, I make no more complaints; I go down the next
butter-day, and make it entirely myself, having her at my side the
whole time. I find I never have to complain again. She sees how it is
made, and she is compelled to own it is good. I believe that a servant
who is worth keeping will follow any directions, and take any amount
of trouble, rather than see 'missus' a second time enter the kitchen
or dairy to do her work."

Perhaps the allusion this lady made to the "shop" may puzzle the