When those who have no claim upon your time or your affections take such liberties, besieging you in your home, we think it not at all reprehensible or discourteous to say, frankly, with unmistakable plainness, that it is inconvenient or quite impossible for you to accommodate or entertain them. Be as kind and gentle as you can, but be firm. They have no claim upon you; let it be well understood that you recognize none, and mean to act accordingly. If you accept the intrusion, without protest, you will but rivet your bonds; and while you find them growing stronger and more galling every year, you will also find that your power to resist and break the chains becomes weaker. Your submission to such imposition and oppression will be well noised abroad, and you will find yourself at the mercy of many a chance customer. To such as come to you in love and for love’s sake, let your doors swing wide open. Intercourse between friends and relatives is another and very different thing. It is giving and receiving, and the pleasure makes the labor light. But to all who use your house for their own selfish convenience, lock the door and drop the key in your pocket. XXXVI. WILL THEY BOARD, OR KEEP HOUSE? WE think it is considered allowable to criticise and gossip about household matters _generally_, so that we don’t intrench on anybody in _particular_. But to avoid meddling was a doctrine so thoroughly inculcated in our youth, that in our talk with young housekeepers we have found ourselves shrinking from touching upon many little mistakes that need rectifying, or topics that will bear discussion, forgetting that we are really not prying into private family matters. Yet, thanks to many letters of inquiry from unknown friends, which give us license and courage to take up prevailing modes or ideas and suggest what we think a better way, we shall go on, and perhaps be considered a meddler after all! When young people marry, the first question asked is, “Will they board, or keep house?” And the reasons for or against keeping house show a very great variety of opinions. We hear this question so often, and see, with pain, how poorly prepared, through the reprehensible indulgence of their mothers, many of the young ladies of the present day are for the performance or superintendence of home cares and duties, that, having waited for some explicit inquiries on the subject, we now propose to embody, in an imaginary letter, some of the anxieties and distress which this same indulgence stores up for the tenderly reared daughters. We will suppose that one of these young ladies writes us as follows:--