fashion, they assume the obligation to employ servants enough to carry
out the design, yet in nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of every
thousand, they ignore the duty.

I admit without demur that, as American domestics go, they are a
burden, an expense and a vexation. Notwithstanding all these
drawbacks, she who will not risk them should not live in such a way
that she must make use of such instruments or overwork herself
physically and mentally.

The entire social and domestic system of American communities calls
loudly for the reform of simplicity and congruity. We begin to build
and are not able to finish. Our economics are false and mischievous,
our aims are petty and low. The web of our daily living is not round
and even-threaded. The homes which are constructed upon the
foundations of deranged, dying and dead women, are a mockery of the
holy name. Our houses should be planned and kept for those who are to
live in them, not for those who tarry within the doors for a night or
an hour. When housekeeping becomes an intolerable care there is sin
somewhere and danger everywhere.




CHAPTER IV.

LITTLE THINGS THAT ARE TRIFLES.


I feel that in writing a chapter upon ways and means I may seem to