If a lady can afford to keep a housekeeper, and is willing to submit to the rule and tyranny of one, rather than burden herself with the entire charge of a house, we can only say, “There is no accounting for tastes,” and will not presume to doubt her right to do so; but even then, after having thrown off the supervision of the household, and all the details connected with its care, we believe every one should still retain sufficient responsibility to be sure that the housekeeper is faithful, capable, and willing at all times to render a satisfactory account of her stewardship; and the mistress should be able to know, also, by these accounts, if she is true to her trust. If this was generally understood to be the rule with all, there would be less unfaithful stewardship, less defalcation in the household certainly, if not everywhere else. But the injury done to subordinates by extravagance is one of the worst features of this evil. Our servants are quick imitators, and if the mistress is easy and careless in her expenditures, the maid soon learns to follow her example, and so will waste the material put into her hands. It does not take long to teach one of the improvident class, from which our servants usually come, a lesson which not only leads her to be careless of the property of others, even when she has no thought or intention of being dishonest, but wholly unfits her for saving her own earnings or managing a home of her own. Hence we see all around us those who have lived in wealthy families marrying, with no knowledge of providing for a family, or of using the little they have with economy. So they sink down, year after year, into deeper poverty and wretchedness; ending, perhaps, in the poorhouse; when if the lessons learned in their employer’s house had been those of true economy, they might now be living in neat and comfortable homes. LXXXIV. MAKING CAKE AND PASTRY. ONE of our young friends, speaking of her troubles, says:-- “I must have cake in the house, but shrink from the attempt to make it; and in my brief experience in housekeeping have, so far, depended on the bake-shops; for I know nothing about such work, and won’t let my girl see me trying it, lest she find out what a novice her mistress is. If I should put all the materials for my cake together, in the most careful manner, and when it is taken from the oven find that it was not good, _I_ should not know if the failure arose from my want of skill in preparing it, or from my girl’s carelessness in baking it; but _she_ would doubtless know whose the fault was, and I am dreadfully afraid it would prove to have been my own. I don’t understand much about cooking, and still less, I fear, how to judge of the quality of the materials I must use in cooking.”