At the corner of the table, between Edwin and Angelina, should be neatly arranged salt, pepper, and mustard. A tiny set of cruets for breakfast can be bought to match the ivy festooned ware, and is as pretty as can be. Very pretty white china salt-cellars &c. can be also purchased, with white china spoons to serve with; and Doulton makes charming sets also, which go with any service, and are very strong, but these have plated mounts; and I am not nearly as fond of them as I am of plain china, as these always look and are clean; and either plated ware or silver tarnish very soon, and make a great deal of work for our one pair of hands; which is one very strong reason why Angelina should put away all the pretty silver salt-cellars she is sure to receive when she is married; reserving these and other handsome possessions until she can afford a butler, or until she has trained her maidens well, and is justified in taking extra help, under the housemaid, when, if she likes, she can bring it out and use it daily.
As in every other department, in the housemaid’s department should rules and regulations be found. She should clean certain rooms on certain days; she should never leave her silver in greasy, or her knives in hot water; she should keep soda in her sink just as the cook does; and she should be instructed how to keep her glass clean and bright, a smeared glass or plate being at once returned to her for alteration should she bring it up to table.
Let the housemaid, moreover, have two or three coarse dust-sheets for covering the furniture when she is sweeping and dusting (and see she uses them), a large piece of ‘crash’ to place in front of the fireplace, when she is cleaning the grate, and a housemaid’s box and gloves. She must, furthermore, have three dusters, three glass-cloths, a good chamois leather, a set of brushes and plate-brushes, a decanter-drainer, a wooden bowl for washing up in, which must be kept free from grease of any kind, and she must wash out her dusters for herself. This makes them last much longer than they otherwise would, and if she has only a certain number she cannot waste and spoil them. Little things like these are what almost ruin a young housekeeper, because she does not know how to manage, and because she is too proud, as a rule, to ask any one why dusters vanish into thin air, and why the washing bill adds up so mysteriously.
Silver can be kept beautifully clean if washed in clean soda water daily, and then cleaned with a little whitening; which glass should be always rubbed bright with a leather.
These items appear insignificant, but I am sure they will be useful hints to many of my less experienced readers.
CHAPTER V.
FIRST SHOPPING.
In life, as in everything else, it is extremely difficult to draw the line anywhere. I want both my young people to care about their house, and know every detail of its management, but they must not become domestic dummies, and think of nothing save how to make a shilling do the work of two, and how to circumvent that terrible butcher, or that still more awful laundry-woman. Once started, the details that seem so ugly and wearisome on paper need never be gone into again, but it is necessary to have some plan and stick to it, else the jarring of the wheels of the domestic car will always be heard, and life will indeed be stale, dull, and unprofitable. People provide their own poetry, my young friends, and life is a very good thing if you do not expect too much from it, or if you will not refuse to accept other folks’ experience, for she has nothing new to give you, nothing to show you she has not shown us all before you. You are not the only young people who have started on a diet of roses and cream, and not the only ones either who have found this disagree with them. So buckle too manfully, and work your way onwards, being quite sure that every fresh home started and kept going on excellent sound principles of health and beauty does a work little known of, less understood about, perhaps, by those who inhabit it, but none the less beneficial to all those who come within its influence.
But I do not mean to preach a sermon, much as I should like to do so, but only to preface my remarks on the subject of our first shopping and how we should begin our scheme of decoration.
It is usual for the landlord to allow a certain sum for the decoration of a house; but rarely, if ever, does that sum allow of anything like really artistic papering and painting. Yet, I maintain, artistic surroundings are far more important than handsome furniture or even an elaborate wedding dress; and I think if we have common sense, and find a good journeyman carpenter and painter, who will work himself with his men under our directions, we shall manage very well indeed.