but there is surely something grievously amiss in our social state, when so much benevolent activity out of doors is compatible with so strangely paralysed a domestic condition. It is impossible, of course, to say how far the two things are combined in the same households. If only those ladies who took no part in out-of-door charity were in trouble with their servants, or living entirely aloof from them, there would be no obvious hollowness, and the scandal would be less. But

I fear this is far from being the case. I fear that with too many ladies charity begins next door, or in the next district; or if it begins in their own homes, it stays entirely upstairs, and counts the work house and the hospital as nearer than the kitchen and the servants' hall.

But, not to dwell upon this, which I should be heartily glad to believe an imaginary reproach, there can be no doubt that the kindest and best mistresses feel their relations with their servants to be difficult and often unsatisfactory, and that the attempt to enter into friendly relations where there is no partnership in work, and where manners and habits of thought are very unlike, has almost necessarily something artificial and embarrassing about it. Tact and cordiality of manner will go far to diminish this difficulty, but nothing will so effectually overcome it as a common undertaking. It may or may not be thought a gain that ladies in these days have lost the power as completely as the will to do household work with their own hands; but since it is so, the opportunity of sharing any work (which is the one main root of natural and friendly relations) has almost disappeared. Some slight amount of superintendence, which in fact amounts to nothing more than taking note of results, and does not imply the slightest knowledge of processes, is as much as most ladies have occasion to bestow upon their households; and the weekly consultation over the housekeeping books, though it certainly brings the mistress into very real relations with at least one member of her household, does not always tend to sweeten those relations.

Now, suppose a kind-hearted mistress of a house, having some time, money, and space to spare, and willing to take thought and trouble to make her house all that it might be. Suppose such a mistress to have as her head servant a sensible motherly woman, who is ready to do her part for the same object. This is not a very extravagant supposition; and yet it is difficult to set a limit to the blessings which, with a cordial understanding between these two, they have it in their power to bestow within the four walls of their own home. Suppose one of the rooms in the house simply furnished with two or three iron bedsteads, a comfortable armchair, some growing flowers in the windows, and a bookcase well stored with both good and light reading. Mention the existence of such a room to any hard-working clergyman or almoner of a relief society in poor VOL. V.-No. 23.

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districts; and let it be known that any poor men or women, children, or married couples, as you feel inclined, to whom fresh air and good food are an object, will be welcome guests for a week or two. You can make any conditions about cleanliness and freedom from infection; and if the housekeeper knows what she is about, you need fear no trouble on this account.' It will not be long before your hospitality will be abundantly accepted. We scarcely know till we try it, what the boon is, to dwellers in the crowded parts of London, of the mere fresh air and space of a good-sized room in a gentleman's house, even in London. And then the good food supplied without their own care, and not cooked before their eyes in the living-room. It seems little to us, but to them it is new life, and after a week or two they look like different creatures. But this mere physical benefit is but a small part of the gain. A succession of such visitors keeps up a stream of life and interest which wonderfully freshens up the atmosphere of the house they come to. Sometimes one is asked to receive a mother and child; and the quiet house is perhaps lightened up by the welcome pattering of little feet, and skipping-ropes and dolls begin to lie about in corners; the little one is in a sort of fairyland, and everything is touched with the freshness and gladness of childhood. Poor children are so easily amused, so independent, and used to minding' themselves and each other, that they are not half the trouble that rich children are to entertain. So it is, indeed, with all poor visitors. They are much the happier for having something to do in the house, and it is generally part of the treatment required for convalescents. So they may be set to work-one to scrub, another to peel potatoes, another to wash up; and so far from making trouble in the house, they almost do the work of another servant. Then they have such interesting histories, which they like to tell, and which often give opportunities of suggesting some better plan of life, or of helping in one way or another. How gladly they will help each other in many little ways! how much the arrival of a

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The following extract from a paper written by a lady who is in the habit of receiving poor visitors (chiefly convalescents from the East End of London) may be given as an instance of the sort of regulations which can easily be made: 'I generally invite patients for a fortnight, but I am glad to keep them for a week or two longer if it appears desirable. I can only receive such as are well enough to make their own beds and keep their room tidy, as we have not hands enough to wait upon them. . . . I require a medical certificate in the subjoined form :

"I certify that the case of is one especially requiring rest, good air, and food; and that is not suffering from any infectious complaint."

[If any stimulants are required, please state particularly the kind and quantity to be given.]

'I expect patients to come sufficiently provided with clean clothes, and to wash their own linen, or pay for its being put out.'

second visitor brightens up the first! Then the little expeditions to the parks or museums, perhaps to the play or Christy Minstrels, cost next to nothing, but give infinite pleasure. In these little parties the servants will take part; sometimes they give the treat. Perhaps the housemaid's young brother is called in to escort her and her friends, and arrives in imposing array, wanting only a button-hole,' which the housekeeper comes up to beg from the drawing-room vases. Let the servants once feel that the mistress delights in such innocent hospitalities, and loves to share in planning them, in hearing all about them, and even in taking a part in such as take place under her own roof, and there will be an endless upspringing of cheerful little devices, plenty of willing hands to do any little extra work they may involve, plenty of goodwill and energy in serving such a motherly mistress. It is not the things themselves-the treats, or the invitations-it is the mistress's share in them which strengthens and sweetens the relation between her and her servants. If she is wise, she will leave almost all the planning and contriving to them, and will, if not actually wait for an invitation to her own kitchen, yet feel her way as cautiously there as she would in the grandest drawing-room she visits. But there is no fear that she will not be made heartily welcome if her heart is felt to be in the hospitalities of her own house-if she is what the servants call 'a real lady:' that is, as incapable of using a disrespectful word or tone of voice to any one of them as to the friend she most looks up to. I feel sure that in all relations, but above all in our relations with those of a lower social position, one great key to all hearts is respectfulness. All who know much of the poor will agree in this: that they are most keenly sensitive to respectful treatment. Good manners will go infinitely further than money, further even than kind deeds, in winning access to them and influence over them. Neither condescension nor indulgence will make a mistress popular. Servants dislike anything like a lady's leaving her own proper place, even more than she dislikes it herself. But what is her proper place? Surely to be as nearly as may be like a mother to every inmate of her house; as careful of their feelings, as deeply interested in their fullest and best development, in their highest improvement and freest enjoyment of life, as if they were her own flesh and blood. Would any mother who had herself tasted the delight of ministering to the poor be satisfied that her daughters should grow up wholly absorbed in a routine of daily drudgery, without the opportunity of doing anything to cherish and comfort the sick and suffering around them? And is it right for each of us to absorb entirely in the work of keeping our houses clean, and preparing our food and clothing, three or four or a dozen women with hearts as warm as our own, and hands much more capable? Would it not be a new era for the poor, if mistresses had hearts

motherly enough to rejoice in training their servants to be fellowworkers with them in all offices of mercy?

And what if, in doing this, our ideal of service became somewhat altered? What if we learned to seek less for minute skill and exactitude in handiwork, or strictness of discipline in a regular routine, and more for good sense, sound judgment, and warm-hearted activity? What if our own life came to be somewhat simplified, so as to allow of greater freedom of mind and hands? Would it be not worth any struggle to free ourselves from the bondage which lies so heavy upon many of us-bondage to an exaggerated standard of perfection in our furniture and surroundings? Wealth and fashion have brought our tables, our dress, and our household appointments of all kinds to such a pitch of luxurious cultivation, that it becomes a matter of very serious difficulty to provide for and maintain the necessary care and skill in domestic work. The extreme elaboration and complication of the machine which has to be worked by servants in these days, goes far to account for the common complaints against them. Real hospitality would require a manner of living at once simpler and more bountiful than is common in these days. Certainly, the fresh current of life which is brought into a house by a succession of poor guests is not easily combined with exact mechanical precision in details. Something a little more rough and ready, more accidental and various and cheerful, something human and living, blossoming and rejoicing, gradually takes the place of anxious attention to chintzes and china, to trains and costumes, soups and entremets. Servants who are one's fellow-helpers in works of charity and kindness have something better to do than to bring one's frills and bric à brac up to the highest pitch of crispness and polish. Invalids to be waited on will sometimes interfere with minute punctuality in serving those who are well. Both mistress and maids, in short, when occupied with the larger and simpler concerns of life, grow of necessity less precise and fidgety about trifles-with what unspeakable relief from fretting care, need not be told. And if the service rendered loses something in mechanical precision, it gains correspondingly in willingness and heartiness and impulse. As I have said, poor guests are delighted to lend a hand in the house or needlework, and one gets abundance of willing service, if not upon one precise and uniform pattern. And then what pains one's own servants will take to please one: how they will bestir themselves to gratify one's little tastes and hobbies (such as the love of flowers, pets, &c.), much more to forward one's serious objects, when they love one: and how sure they are to love one when one works hand to hand with them in a good cause; a cause which touches their feelings, as does the service of the poor and the sick, especially in one's own home.

That is the great thing-to win their hearts; a thing strangely

and touchingly easy, but for the difficulties we ourselves have made. Custom and want of thought have allowed the growth of a strange and deplorable barrier between mistresses and servants. I have actually heard mistresses-kindhearted, good women too-speak of its being a great mistake to make friends of one's servants'! Just think of what is implied in this too common feeling (for numbers of ladies who would not go so far as to call it a mistake, think of it as altogether out of the question). Think of the deliberate abandonment of one of the richest opportunities of influencing and blessing those for whose welfare we are peculiarly responsible, and the extraordinary theory implied in it about the nature of servants. What inconceivable species of human beings can they be supposed to belong to who will work better (for of course such mistresses are not thinking of their faring better) in the house of those whom they do not love! Or else, what in the name of common sense can be the objection to their being our friends? Love is a present for a mighty king.' I can understand the fear that we may not succeed in winning it, but not to desire it, from the members of our own household, seems to me an almost incredible infatuation. It can only be a part of that strange idea that there is safety for the upper classes in keeping at a distance from those below them, which one meets in so many forms, and which seems to imply so sad and so dangerous a blindness.

But apart from this, I do believe that there is a radically wrong ideal of the relation between mistresses and servants, which is widely accepted in these days, and which throws our energies into quite wrong channels. The accomplishment of merely mechanical work, and the observance of a certain strict outward form of propriety, assume an altogether disproportionate place in the mistresses' minds. The tendency to look upon servants as machines is sadly common, with the natural result of finding them exceedingly unsatisfactory machines. If mistresses desired to have in their servants not mere household machines, but true fellow-workers-if they appealed to a deeper part of their servants' nature-they would not only elicit a response which would surprise them, but they would have far less need to concern themselves with discipline. Give women a healthy exercise for their affections, and plenty of work for others, with the joy of giving, and ministering to the necessities of those poorer than themselves, and there will be much less trouble about this and that not being my place,' much less stickling for petty privileges, or offence taken where none is meant. It is the difference between a fresh stream of bright sparkling running water, carrying everything before it, and the same water in a half-stagnant condition, creeping along so slowly that every straw or twig is an obstacle. The difference is not in the water, only in its channel. And so with our servants. It is not human nature, but the unnatural position made

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