Breakage and general disaster attend the progress of Bridget or Chloe.

The kitchen seems the headquarters of extraordinary smells, and the stove an abyss in its consumption of coal or wood.

Food is wasted by bad cooking, or ignorance as to needed amounts, or methods of using left-over portions; and, as bills pile up, a hopeless discouragement often settles upon both wife and husband, and reproaches and bitterness and alienation are guests in the home, to which they need never have come had a little knowledge barred them out.
In the beginning, then, be sure of one thing,--that all the wisdom you have or can acquire, all the patience and tact and self-denial you can make yours by the most diligent effort, will be needed every day and every hour of the day.

Details are in themselves wearying, and to most men their relation to housekeeping is unaccountable.

The day's work of a systematic housekeeper would confound the best-trained man of business.