How much WISDOM and THOUGHTFULNESS, too, we need to keep all the different dispositions in the house in harmony, to know just the right moment to correct and the time when extra work or a rainy wash-day or a headache make it wisest to delay correction. And then MORAL COURAGE—it is wonderful how that often will win the day. It is fatal to be afraid of servants. If you have to reprove one of them that you like and do not wish to lose, it is a good thing to fortify yourself with the thought that it would be better to lose her than to give in to any unreasonableness, for that would certainly put you in her power. You will be surprised how the calm firmness that this thought will give you will generally win the day, if it is backed by the fact that the maid knows she is in a comfortable home and has a considerate mistress. But I know you want me to talk about your particular troubles, when there _was_ a comfortable home and a considerate mistress. I can readily believe how interested you were in making Mary happy and that you wanted her to feel that your house was her home, and I can just picture how sweet and nice your kitchen and her bedroom looked with everything so neat and new. It was disappointing, in return for all your thoughtfulness of her comfort, to have her show that all she apparently wanted was to get away from her work as quickly and as often as possible. And then after her departure to have such a series of incompetents in quick succession, each with some new demand, was perfectly disheartening. I do feel so sorry for you, for I know just how discouraged you must have been. Of course I have no way of divining what the cause of dissatisfaction was, but we always have to bear in mind that there is so much of the antagonistic spirit between mistress and maid that those of us who do not have it, but who want to be kind, have to suffer for those who are unjust. At any time a maid may come to us direct from a home where she has had a hard mistress, who gave her her outings grudgingly, didn’t like her to have her friends come to see her, and perhaps, while giving her an almost luxurious room, rarely spoke a kind word to her and took it for granted she would be faithless and perhaps even dishonest.