A housemaid’s duties are various, and by no means easy of attainment; for she has to contend against a host of enemies—dust, soot, smoke, rust, insects of various kinds, and bad smells innumerable; let her, however, not be discouraged; all difficulties will give way before early rising, habits of activity, an acute nose, frequent open windows, and a teachable spirit; let us therefore proceed without further preface to give our best advice as to cleaning a house thoroughly after the six winter months of smoke and dust. Let all the dusters and brushes which will be required, be carefully washed the day before you begin the work of cleaning. To sweep with a dirty brush will do more harm to a carpet than to leave it unswept; and a chair-cover, rubbed with a soiled duster, is injured in a way which no after-dusting can remove. Let the stair-carpet be first taken up and folded to be beaten with the other carpets. If the family are absent, it is better that all the carpets which require to be beaten should be taken up at the same time and sent away, and all the chimneys swept before the cleaning begins. But if the family are at home, this should not be done, as the cleaning should then only begin in one room at a time, so as to occasion as little discomfort and inconvenience as possible. Let the stairs be first swept down after the carpet has been removed, taking care that all the bed-room doors be previously shut. If the chimneys in the attics are to be swept, place a mat on the upper landing-place, and if the rooms have carpets, let the carpets be taken up in as many of the rooms as can be cleaned in one day: as the carpets in the upper rooms are, generally small, they are in most families beaten in the court below; the window and bed-curtains should also be taken down and well shaken and brushed below stairs, and the beds carefully covered up with a covering-sheet, well tucked in all round, that no soot may penetrate; then remove the tables and chairs into the landing-place, if there is space sufficient, turning the bottom of one chair down upon the bottom of another; if the landing-place is too small, remove them into one of the attics, and let this room be the last swept and scoured. As soon as the chimney is swept, let the soot be carefully collected, and the housemaid follow the sweep down stairs, taking care that he previously has rubbed his feet upon the mat, and also that he does not allow the bag of soot which he carries to touch the walls as he passes down,—this should be still more attended to, when some one chimney in a house may require to be swept at a time when the stair-carpet is not taken up; to have a handsome brussels carpet stained with soot is no light misfortune to a feeling heart, to trace the creature at every step is no pleasant journey.