True, there is much that is hard and disagreeable in household cares and labors; but what good thing do we possess that does not require thought, effort, and often unpleasant labor before we come into the full possession and enjoyment of it? Under any self-denial or hardship experienced in the performance of duty, there is a great comfort in the knowledge that, the work being once mastered and made familiar, any thought of drudgery connected with it disappears; and in the happy consciousness of independence and power over difficulties one finds great pleasure and full compensation. In preparing these articles for book publication, we have not attempted to bring them together in a methodical manner, but have allowed them to follow one another in about the order in which we were moved to write them by the daily occurrences around us, or in reply to many letters from discouraged or _ready-to-halt_ young housekeepers. Nor have we presumed to give advice or instructions to old, well-established mothers and housekeepers, who doubtless know far more than we do, and at whose feet we would cheerfully sit for instruction. But like a mother in the midst of her young daughters we have desired to stand, answering such questions as they would naturally ask, pointing out mistakes that they are likely to make, showing where the error lies, and trying to offer a remedy; not in household affairs alone, but in many phases of the duties that belong to the wife and mother as well as to the housekeeper. To give some little assistance and encouragement in every effort to make _home_ what it should be,--the happiest place on earth,--is our earnest desire. EUNICE W. BEECHER. PART I. MOTHERLY TALKS WITH YOUNG HOUSEKEEPERS. I. SYSTEM IN WORK. “I HAVE been hard at work all day,” we think we hear some say; “up stairs and down, from the cellar to the attic, looking into every nook and corner, and ‘putting things to rights’ generally. O dear! I _wonder what next_ those grim old housekeepers would expect me to take hold of. I have everything in good running order, as far as I can see, and now how I would like to take a book and curl up somewhere, out of sight and hearing, and have one of the old-fashioned good times I used to have before I was married. Well, I don’t care. I mean to have it, anyhow, and just let things go on without my watching, for a while. Nora can manage to keep the house in order, _somehow_, now I have everything in its right place, I am sure.” Ah! but, my dear little woman, if you do not give daily attention to your household affairs, in a few days, under Nora’s rule, you will find the machinery all out of order, and be compelled again to go over the same wearisome labor you now complain of. “What then am I to do? From this time on, is my life to be a perpetual drudgery?”