Birch is a very pretty wood for this room, as is also mahogany. The carpet, curtains, and table-cover should not be too brilliant. The hearth-rug, hassocks, &c., should either be a match or some good contrast. A large cheffonier, the practice piano, a chimneyglass, several pictures, a work-table, folding chess-table, bronze or lacquered gasalier, and a what-not should also find places here. ! The Library or Study should be furnished in mahogany, or oak, and leather. Two or three reading-chairs, writing-table with drawers, couch, two occasional tables to hold papers, &c., and a book-case, or book-shelves, are required for your library. The shelves themselves should be movable, so that you can accommodate their height to the sizes of your volumes. This apartment should be furnished with damask curtains, both summer and winter. Oil paintings are very appropriate, as are also statuettes, groups in bronze, &c. In addition to the ordinary gas-fittings, a movable gas lamp, with flexible tubing, is essential. The Hall should be entirely covered with floor-cloth, kamptulicon, or other patent floor-covering, with suitable door-mats; it should also contain a hat and umbrella-stand, with glass back, one or two chairs, a small table furnished with writing materials, a gong or dinner-bell, a clock, and a barometer and thermometer (combined), with oil-paintings on the walls. Staircases should be carpeted from top to bottom with the same pattern carpet-browns, drabs, and greens are the best colours. In summer the stair carpets should be covered with white linen damask, or thin oiled canvas. has a good effect. Silver fir, polished pine, birds'-eye maple, or satin-wood, are all fashionable. Three to six chairs (cane seated), a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a large washstand (double), toilet-table and glass, towel airer, and an easy chair, will comprise all you require. Your carpet should be rather light in colour, with hearth-rug to match. The toilet and washstand fittings should be plain white, with a gold border. In the matter of quilts, blankets, sheets, pillow-cases, bed furniture, valances, bolsters, pillows, beds, mattresses and palliasses, the taste of the mistress of the house must reign supreme. A bedside or invalid table is useful in a large bed-room. Kitchen Furniture should be plain, neat, and strong; plate-racks wide, ironing-board steady, and cupboards deep and roomy. Kitchen Utensils.-The following is a list suitable for a small family : 6 Knives and Forks. 1 Flour Box 3 Flat Irons 2 Frying Pans 1 Gridiron 1 Mustard Pot. Bed-rooms.-With respect to the advantages of iron or brass, as against wooden bedsteads, the former certainly possesses greater strength, 1 Salt Cellar lightness, and beauty; but the selec-1 Pepper Box. tion is a matter of taste. For the 1 Pair of Bellows curtains, &c., pure white, or white 3 Jelly Moulds striped with rose colour, or light-blue, 1 Plate Dasket 6 6 is the case, take a bit of mutton suet and fine flour, and cleanse the work. Suitable also to other varnished surfaces. Hints for Housewives.-Save suds for gardens and plants. Count your clothes-pins, spoons, knives, forks, towels, handkerchiefs, &c., every week. Never pour boiling water on tea trays, but wash them with cool water, and polish with a little flour and a dry cloth. Save pieces of bread for puddings; dry them well, and they will not turn mouldy. Do not buy cheese in large quantities at a time, especially in summer. A hot shovel, or a warming-pan of coals, held over varnished furniture, will take out white spots. Rub the place, while warm, with flannel. Marble fire-places should not be washed with soap, which will, in time, destroy the polish; after the dust is wiped off, rub the pots with a soft oil-cloth, then rub dry with a rag. When knobs of doors are rubbed, use a large piece of paste-board, with a hole in the centre, just enough to encircle the knob, and a slit in the paper to let it in.' This slipped on will protect the paint from being soiled. If flat irons are rough, or smoky, lay a little fine salt on a flat surface, and rub them well, to make them smooth, and prevent them from sticking to anything starched. Keep tapes, threads, and pieces of various fabrics in separate bags; and so save time in looking for them. Change water in flower-pots every day in summer, or it will become offensive and unwholesome. When clothes have acquired an unpleasant odour by being kept from the air, charcoal laid in the folds will soon remove it. A bit of soap rubbed on the hinges of a door will prevent their creaking. Servants. It is the fashion to say that the servants of our day are less skilled and trustworthy than their predecessors. This may be so, but at the same time the masters and mistresses are often to blame. Few indeed possess the skill (or if they do possess it they do not show it) to unite authority with kindness, and fewer still are capable of that steady and uniformly reasonable conduct which alone can maintain true dignity, and command a willing and attentive obedience. Servants' wages vary so considerably according to time and place, that no attempt will here be made to set down the rates at which they ought to be paid; but for the benefit of young housekeepers-a short epitome of the duties of the various servants is appended. A clever housewife will not only know what her servants should do, but see that they do it properly. The Housekeeper is, among servants, the most important member of the household, for to her is confided the management of nearly the whole of the establishment; and on her skill and sagacity depends the comfort of every one in the house. Among her principal duties are the general marketing-the purchase or choice of meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, groceries, &c.; the storing of fruit, pickling, and the curing of meat, and the general charge of the store-room. In most families the housekeeper is expected to keep accounts of all domestic expenditure. She should, therefore, be familiar with figures, and write a neat, plain, hand. As a rule, even if the mistress of the house herself. undertakes to keep the regular accounts, the housekeeper should enter all sums which pass through her hands in a memorandum book,* at the end of which should be made an inventory of the stock in hand when she commenced her duties, as this inventory will enable her, at any time, to see what is required in the way of replenishment. And in this way also she will arrive at a pretty accurate judgment of the average needs and consumption of the household. As the whole conduct of the servants is under the control of the * See Blackwood's "Housekeeper's Account Book." housekeeper, she should be an early riser, a good manager, and a clever adviser. She should, moreover, be patient, good tempered, and particularly clean; always ready to advise or assist in any department of the house, and possess a thorough knowledge of the duties of every domestic under her control. Various small but important matters will come within her province-such as the regulation of fires in the bed-rooms, the periodical cleansing and repairing necessary in every establishment, however large or small; the order and arrangement of the furniture, the changes of the window curtains according to the season; the preparing, counting, and entering the clothes for the laundress, or for the weekly wash; the supervision of the storeroom, and the general putting to rights of the furniture, books, linen, plate, wearing apparel, &c., of the household. According to the size of the family, the wages of the housekeeper vary from fifteen pounds to fifty pounds a year; and in large or bachelor establishments much higher rates are often paid. The Cook should above all things be cleanly, and should learn the particular tastes of her employers, whether they prefer meats well-done or underdone; soups thick or thin, light or dark, clear or full; what flavours they fancy-especially of spices and herbs-whether they prefer their food highly seasoned or not, and many other little matters. the door, and rings of the bell; after which her sole attention will be devoted to the preparation of the family dinner. In this she needs all her knowledge, experience, taste, and the economic tact for which she doubtless received credit from her last mistress. The Second Cook or Kitchen-maid has to take the management-under the cook's superintendence of roasting, boiling, and otherwise dressing of plain joints, fish and vegetables. One of her foremost duties is the preservation of cleanliness in the kitchen and other parts of the house. large establishments the kitchen-maid is assisted by In The Scullery-maid, whose business it is to wash up the plates and dishes, saucepans, stewpans, and other kitchen utensils. She also assists the kitchenmaid generally, in preparing vegetables for cooking, lighting fires, sweeping and cleaning the kitchen and lower rooms of the house, and making herself generally useful. Under the head, Domestic Cookery, will be found all particulars relating to the preparation of meats, fish, made dishes, &c. The Housemaid is always busy, for her labours extend to nearly every apartment, as well as occasionally assisting the lady's-maid and laundress. On her exertions depend the cleanliness and good order of the house, furniture and bedding, the care of which forms her principal duty. In many houses there are two or more housemaids, one being sometimes In large establishments the cook is styled Purlour-maid, and the other engaged entirely in the preparation the Under Housemaid. Between of the daily meals, but in the more them they divide the work, such as numerous households in which only dusting, sweeping and cleaning, beda cook and housemaid are employed, making, fire-lighting, preparing the the cook has the charge of the dining-rooms for company, carrying in the room, and is the sole mistress of the kitchen. She is also expected to keep the hall, the lamps, the doorsteps, and the passages clean and neat; and in some cases helps the housemaid to make the beds, &c. The young housewife will, however, arrange these matters for herself. In the early part of the day the cook is expected to answer single knocks at breakfast and supper trays; and, when there is no parlour-maid, waiting at table. The housemaid should be an early riser, clean and neat in her person, active, methodical, and goodtempered. The Laundry-maid.-Her business is almost exclusively confined to the washing and getting up of the family linen. She should be thoroughly up The Lady's-mail should be fairly well educated, tasteful and neat. Her principal duty is to attend to the personal wants of her mistress in connexion with the toilet and the wardrobe. She should be apt at dressing hair, and have a good taste in the contrast and distribution of colours, acquainted with the most favourite perfumes and cosmetics, ready with the needle, and an expert milliner. In most families the lady's-maid is also employed as a needlewoman. She has the charge of her mistress's wardrobe, and should be au fait at packing trunks and boxes for journeys; and, in fact, a handy help, cheerful assistant, and confidential, though not too familiar, friend to her employer. In another section of this volume will be found numerous recipes for cleaning feathers, crapes, ribbons, &c.; for the preparation of simple perfumes, pomades, washes, dyes, &c., all of which come within the scope of her many and pleasant duties. to her work and scrupulously clean., directions for the dairy-maid are given Much of the hard work of the laundry in subsequent pages. is now performed by means of various labour-saving contrivances, such as the washing machine, the clothes' wringer, the roller-mangle, the dryer, &c., and by the use of approved washing powders in the place of the rough soda, almost universal a few years ago. Every mistress will have her own plans and arrangements; but a good laundry-maid will so apportion her work as to have regular days for washing, ironing, &c., and a uniform method of proceeding so as to save time and economise labour. Thus she will begin with an examination of the articles for the wash, separating the coarse from the fine, the towels and sheets from the body linen, collars, muslins, the woollens from the cottons, and so forth; putting each in its separate tub. She will carefully look for wine, beer, ink, or grease spots, which she will remove by applying sal ammonia, oxalic acid, soap, &c., as directed in another chapter. She sees that her copper is properly alight early in the morning, so that The Nurse has so important and those things which require boiling-responsible a position that the utmost such as coarse linens, &c.; receipts vigilance is necessary in selecting such for the best modes of cleansing which a person as will be at the same time a articles will be found in subsequent safe companion for young children, an pages. She must also be very parti- experienced manager, and a goodcular not to have the water for flan- tempered, pleasant looking woman; nels, angolas, &c., too hot, or they she should be acquainted with childwill shrink and lose their colour. All ren's diseases, and their treatment, articles of silk, as handkerchiefs or attentive to regularity of diet, and dresses, must be washed by them- should have the entire management of selves in two or three waters, the last the children's clothes. Under the almost cold, and hung out to dry in nurse's supervision in large families the shade, without wringing. After isthe washing and drying comes the starching, mangling, and ironing, with which processes all servants should be quite familiar. The Dairy-maid has the management of the dairy, poultry-yard, and bake-house; she milks the cows, makes the butter, cheese, &c., feeds, picks, and prepares the poultry for the cook; and also, in some families, makes the bread. Her duties, however, vary according to the size of the family and the district in which they reside. Various useful receipts and The Nursemaid, who is, in every respect, the nurse's deputy. She should be active, kindly and industrious. It is the business of the sick nurse to cleanse and dust her lady's room, and look after her wants and wishes generally. As to the special duties of the Monthly nurse, and the Wet nurse, no mistress of a family need be informed; but the young wife will do well to make strict inquiries into their ages, habits, tempers, and capabilities. Recipes for simple medicines, food for children, sick-room cookery, with hints and cautions on emergencies, are inserted in another portion of this work. The nurse should make herself familiar with these, as the proper thing done at the proper time often saves anxiety, trouLle, expense, and even life. The Butler is the principal of the men-servants, and consequently enjoys a position of great trust and importance. His duties include the management of the wine and beer cellars-for which special training is necessary-the arrangement of the table, the business of the side-board and side-table, and the care of the plate. He should also be a good carver, and a fair judge of wine. The Under-butler is the assistant of the butler, and should possess the same knowledge. Where an underbutler is not kept, the footman assists the butler. All who undertake the duties of butler should thoroughly understand the bottling and fining of wines, beer, &c., and be acquainted with the most approved modes of laying a table for a large party. The Valet is expected to possess a competent knowledge of the habits and customs of polite life, and to be thoroughly acquainted with etiquette and forms of fashion. His especial business is to attend to the personal accommodation of his master; to take charge of his wardrobe, and to attend to the general business of the dressingroom. He usually travels with his master, and should consequently be able to give accurate information as to times and distances. A knowledge of French is almost essential in these days of travel. The Coachman--in families where only one is kept-has to undertake the care of the carriage, and some of the stable business. He should be skilful, nimble, hardy, and honest, should love horses, and never be afraid of turning his hand to anything that is required of him. The Groom-who is often undercoachman as well-has the feeding, exercise and general management of the horses. He has also to see to the general good order of the stable. The groom should be a good driver and rider, and possess some knowledge of the ailment and temper of horses. Recipes for water-proofing leather, managing harness, removing stains, &c., inserted in other chapters, will be found useful to the coachman and groom. The Footman's duties include almost every kind of household employment. Cleaning, in its various branches, assisting, and in some cases taking the place of the butler or valet. He should be accomplished in waiting at table, the management of wardrobes, and, indeed, should be able and willing to make himself generally useful. He it is who opens the door to visitors (where a hall porter is not kept), waiting at table, riding behind the carriage, or on the box with the coachman, carrying messages for his employers, cleaning plate, and, in fact, acting in any capacity where handiness, readiness, and tact are required. The Gardener's duties will be fully shown in the section devoted to Garden Management, and therefore we need only here say, that for every large establishment, a scientific florist, with a working gardener under him, is necessary. The duties of the Page, UnderFootman, and Stable-boy, are so simple, and they are so entirely under the direction of the superior servants as to need no special reference. The Maid of All Work or General Servant is often a girl of from thirteen to sixteen. Under a good and active mistress, she will soon, if she be attentive and willing, learn the usual duties of the housemaid, and acquire some knowledge of the plain cooking, and the ordinary business of a small household. From the moment she rises in the morning and opens the house, lights the fires, sweeps up the sitting-room, and gets ready the breakfast, her work goes on continuously; but if the mistress be a good manager, certain days will be set apart for cleaning up and dusting the several apartments, and thus by system and regularity much labour may be saved, |