e if she is of the cross-grained type, her work in that department
will be done, and her duties for the day are at an end. There is none of
the clever marketing by which fifty per cent. is saved in the outlay if
a woman knows what she is about, and how to buy; none of the personal
superintendence so encouraging to servants when genially performed, and
rendering slighted work impossible; none of that "seeing to things"
herself, or doing the finer parts of the work with her own hands, which
used to form part of a woman's unquestioned duty. She gives her orders,
weighs out her supplies, then leaves the maids to do the best they know
or the worst they will, according to the degree in which they are
supplied with faculty or conscience. Many women boast that their
housekeeping takes them perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour, in the
morning, and no more; and they think themselves clever and commendable
in proportion to the small amount of time given to their largest family
duty. This is all very well where the income is such as to secure
first-class servants--professors of certain specialities of knowledge,
and far in advance of the mistress; but how about the comfort of the
house with this hasty generalship, when the maids are mere scrubs who
would have to go through years of training before they were worth their
salt? It may be very well too in large households governed by general
system, and not by individual ruling; but where the service is scant and
poor, it is a stupidly uncomfortable as well as a wasteful way of
housekeeping. It is analogous to English cookery--a revolting poverty of
result with flaring prodigality of means; all the pompous paraphernalia
of tradespeople, and their carts, and their red-books for orders, with
nothing worth the trouble of booking, and everything of less quantity
and lower quality than might be if personal pains were taken, which is
always the best economy practicable.

What is there in practical housekeeping less honorable than the ordinary
work of middle-class gentlewomen? and why should women shrink from doing
for utility, and for the general comfort of the family, what they would
do at any time for vanity or idleness? No one need go into extremes, and
wish our middle-class gentlewomen to become Cinderellas sitting among
the kitchen ashes, Nausicaaes washing linen, or Penelopes spending their
lives in needlework only. But, without undertaking anything unpleasant
to her senses or degradin