The furnace and ranges must be cleared out, and if any repairs are necessary they should be done now. It will annoy you far more to have these to attend to when you return and are in the confusion and haste of getting “settled” for the winter, with the thousand interruptions to which you will then be liable. The top of the range should be rubbed in sweet-oil, or lard that has no salt in it, to prevent _rust_. Flat-irons, bake-pans, soup-boilers, all iron-ware, must also be oiled, wrapped up in paper, and hung up, that you may find your utensils in perfect order when you return, needing only a good washing in hot soapsuds to be ready for immediate use. Have locks, keys, bolts, and bars in a good usable condition, that you may feel sure that nothing is left without strong fastenings. All this preparation is hard work, and you are very thankful when the last trunk is locked, the last bundle or basket fastened, and this labor ended. But the comfort and satisfaction of knowing by your own actual observation and care that all has been done, and waits your return in the fall, with no mark of carelessness to rise up in reproach against you, will be ample compensation. Yet, at the last minute, take one more journey from cellar to attic, to “make assurance doubly sure,” and then, leaving all that care behind you, go on your way rejoicing. X. HEEDLESSNESS. THERE are many annoyances that fall to a housekeeper’s lot which seem very insignificant when spoken of, and too trivial to put on paper; but they are grievances nevertheless, and like a wasp’s or bee’s sting, though small, not easily borne; and when they follow each other in quick succession, and are constantly repeated, the accumulation, like a whole swarm of bees, will tax the grace and patience of the strongest. It is the little frets of daily life that, when summed up, become almost unendurable; and to them is added the mortification of knowing that friends who are only “lookers on,” having never themselves touched the burden with so much as their little finger, feel no sympathy, but on the contrary almost a good-natured contempt, that any one should be so weak as to be shaken by such trifling troubles and vexations. But they are not trifling; if they were only occasional they would be; but they are of daily, hourly occurrence, and, because they are never ending, make a housekeeper’s responsible position one that demands self-control and patience of a higher order than any other position to which woman aspires. There is a dignity in being burnt at the stake that enables one to rise above the pain; but to be harried to death with briers and brambles is very humiliating, yet a torture none the less.