As directions have been given with regard to cleaning mahogany in the bed-rooms, it is needless so particularly to repeat them here; the rubbing is at first the great matter, and cannot be done too often; very little oil and a great deal of rubbing is the root of the business; it is not enough to rub the furniture of a room with a view to polish it on the great cleaning days, a little every day makes, in time, a great impression; a really good housemaid should never be able to be alone in a room with a table or a chair without giving it a good rub, or, if the room is occupied, without _wishing_ to do so. Tables and chairs should be to her objects of deep interest; after her own family and the family of her mistress, they should claim the next place in her affections; she should steadily contemplate them between her and the light, and in all various points of view, and if they present themselves to her sight without spot or blemish, shedding a bright lustre over her past labours, she may rejoice in the work of her hands. All the brass in the room comes next to be polished; the plates and handles of the doors and of the bells, the castors, &c., &c., should be cleaned with rotten-stone and oil, and rubbed with leather till quite bright; care should be taken not to soil the paint in doing this; there is nothing so ugly as a black rim round the handle, or to see the mark of dirty fingers on the door itself, giving evidence that the housemaid’s mode of shutting the door is not by turning the handle, but by pulling the door itself. This strange dislike to touching the handle of a door, this constant habit of putting the hand either above the handle or below it, anywhere, in short, but on the handle itself, seems a prevailing disease amongst housemaids; the consequence is, that one often sees the paint, either above or below the handle, entirely rubbed off, and the wood shining through from the necessity of frequent scouring, or, if there are brass plates to prevent this, they have constantly a dull and smeared appearance: in scouring either the handle or brass plate all marks of the rotten-stone may be prevented by having a duster in one hand to cover the paint, while the other hand is employed in scouring the brass.