The Expert Maid-Servant

given curtly-sometimes harshly. She takes the ground that the servant is paid for her work and that for an

frank fear lest the servant may leave her, and in order to retain her services makes almost any concession. Such m

risk of parting with them. She gives orders as orders, instead of asking services as favors; but she issues her commands in a kindly way and with none of the tone or manner of a dictator, still less of a shrew. When her servants are to be reprimanded, she d

dogs. So it is as desirable for the mistress to learn the proper method of dealing with the maids as it is for the maids to understand the mistress. Ther

ent disobedience before she finds fault. Always the mistress should be ready to make explanations about the work. When the maid comes for instruction she should be met patiently, and if there seems to be a difficulty of understanding, a practical illustration will often do more than half an hour of verbal directions. When the mistress can show the maid how the table is to be set, how the beds are to be made,

losely enough to produce the impression upon them that she takes an interest in their work and means to see that it is thoroughly done. When it is not accomplished to her liking she should call them to account, not unkindly, but decidedly. If a ring of dust around the bric-à-brac shows where the duster has been flourished about the furniture instead of being used to wipe each surface carefully, the mistress should call the maid to bring her cloth and po

se so far above the comfort of its inmates that these feel they would rather have dirt with peace than tidiness without it, are common enough to make a word of warning in place. But it is p

she should not choose the time for her morning visit to the kitchen when the maids are at their breakfast. In fact, she should be punctilious not to call her servants from their meals except in cases of absolute necessity. They have a right to take their food undisturbed, and this right the mistress should respect. Nor should the housekeeper choose the cook's busiest day for doing cooking

, it is well for her to wait a few minutes after the discovery of the fault before she utters her rebuke. That will give her time to get the fault a little in perspective and to see its true proportions. Then she should summon the maid to her and deliver her words of warning or reprimand. Never should she

ll bring out facts that the mistress had not known and which put a different face upon the occurrence. When rebuke is essential it should not only be delivered quietly, but there sho

impossible to conquer them by reproof, it is better to discharge a servant tha

nd maids will convince any one that there is need for the advice. In many households not only the mistress but the master of the home gives orders harshly and discourteously, and the children are quick to take their cue from their elders. A degree of rudeness is permitted by parents in their children that should not be tolerated for an instant. The small boys and girls in presumably well-bred families bully and "sauce" the servants in a fashion that

more likely to be granted. As a matter of course, the service is in a way an obligation that is bought and paid for, but the introduction of a little kindliness into the

est level the thought that the work was well done would perhaps be enough to bring satisfaction, but as it is, a word of commendation is grateful to all of us. It is a little thing to praise the latest baking as remarkably good, to commend the maid who has waited exce

to produce any effect. I have known one of that sort. If her biscuit were praised once as being good, they had to be called excellent the second time, surpassing the third, and so on, until the adjectives applicable to biscuit had been exhausted and the mi

pseudo-intimacy which is hard to break off. It is not probable that the latter would have put herself forward without a certain amount of encouragement. Once in a blue moon one meets a pearl of a serving-woman who is worthy of all the confidence and affection that can be bestowed upon her, and who grants to her employers an unselfish devotion that one rarely gets from one's next of kin. Such cases are few and far between, a

ne. Occasionally, if she has good servants who seem to misunderstand one another it may be worth while, for her own sake as well as for theirs, to attempt to adjust differences between them. As a rule, it is well for her to keep out of it after one trial has shown her that her intervention has worked no good. Never should the mistress be led into discussing one servant with another, or listening to the complaints that a domestic makes of her fellow-workers. Class-feeling is stronger than the relation

. The latter course makes room for misunderstanding and recriminations. When a maid has been in the same employ for a good while, this rule may be w