Care and thought are centred in the kitchen, and once Angelina has carefully trained her maid into nice ways, the house will go like clockwork, and that is why I should advise any young housekeeper to take young girls as household servants (_not on any account, by the way, as nurses; no young nurse is worth her keep save as an under-servant_); an ‘experienced cook’ quotes her experience, and Angelina, having none to fall back upon, trembles and is conquered; but with a bright, intelligent girl, Mrs. Beeton’s most excellent book on household management (as regards food), a little common-sense, and a mother who has brought her daughter up sensibly, Angelina can start on her way, quite certain that she and her maidens will work together in a pleasant and satisfactory manner, and that she will never be exposed to domestic earthquakes such as occur with ‘experienced servants,’ who, having brought themselves up in a big establishment where nobody cared for them, go into Angelina’s small one in order to get as much out of it as they can, regarding all mistresses as their natural enemies! One more subject as regards the kitchen. Never allow, on any pretext, that a dust-bin or a ‘wash-tub’ is ever needed. With a kitchener every morsel of _débris_ should be burned in the close grate; and a dust-bin is never a necessity to any one who knows her business, and is determined never to allow of the smallest waste. There is nothing a kitchener will not burn--remember that, please! and flatly refuse to allow a dust-bin in any part of the house; it only means that waste will go on _ad libitum_, and that dirt and untidiness are favoured by one’s cook. CHAPTER III. MEALS AND MONEY. I am going to devote this chapter entirely to the matter of money--that is to say, to indicating how the income should be apportioned, and what it costs to feed a small family who are content with nice plain food, and who do not hanker after elaborate cooking and out-of-the-way dishes; in which case they must not come to me for advice, as I have really no information to give them; and to further indicate as far as I can--outside the limits of a cookery book--some of the meals that can be managed without either much fuss and worry and an undue expenditure of money and time.