"I have always been interested in your labour-saving ideas. I married, and we were comfortably off. We have a tiny London house and I arranged to have gas fires, cooker, and circulator, service lift, and also a rubbish destructor, as I hate nasty-smelling dustbins.
"We can only have one bathroom, but there is hot and cold water, a sink and slop sink on the top floor.
"Gas fires are much improved and ours are really attractive to look at and well ventilated; but of course I would rather have coal to sit by, and we did have two coal fires at first; but now, since the war, I have all gas, because we are far worse off and living is so dear, and instead of two maids I now have only a general servant. We used to entertain in a mild sort of way a very great deal, but most of that naturally has come to an end.
"My husband is delicate, and I don't like him to have cold meals at night, so when 'General Jane' is out (and I let her go out as often as possible), we have dinner laid, and soup, a hot dish such as braised cutlets, chicken en casserole, stewed steak (often it's silverside really), with vegetables in it, and a dish of potatoes put ready on a heater on a side table I keep for the purpose. There is a cold sweet, so we do very well. I clear everything away and put dishes, etc., into the lift, which takes about six or seven minutes.
"Our bedrooms are linoleum floored and very empty. My own researches into domesticity prove to me that a crowded room is a bane to the housemaid. Our ex-parlourmaid, an admirable worker, told me that our rooms 'took half the time to clean than most.'"
What the house-parlourmaid said:
"Your rooms take half the time to clean of most, ma'am, and then look clean, which is more than some do."