Many things that are really untidy are not noticed until, through neglect, they increase, and at last cause great confusion in the home affairs, simply because the young housekeeper’s attention has not been called to them, or she does not yet understand how to regulate and control them. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is of a nature that leads to mischief in the end. Let us point out some of these petty troubles, and see what they amount to and how they may be removed. What more disagreeable and annoying than to have the vapors or odors that arise from washing or cooking pervade the whole house, giving to it the sickening smell of the lowest class boarding-houses? When seated quietly in the parlor, it comes so gradually upon one that it is hardly noticed; but step for a moment into the fresh air, and on your return you will be greatly disgusted at the fumes that half suffocate you as you open the door. This infliction can be escaped only by keeping the doors of the kitchen or hall leading from it tightly closed. Yet it seems almost impossible to teach a servant that just “pushing the door to” is not shutting it, and the smells of the kitchen will escape as readily through a half-closed as through an open door. There is no help for this evil but watchfulness and constant reminder. You can put springs or rubber straps on the door, and while they are new and stiff they will swing to with force enough to close it; but the spring will soon grow careless, like other servants, and by and by not shut the door entirely. As well leave it wide open as ajar. Besides, springs are very troublesome and inconvenient, and, in the passing of servants with their hands full, endanger the dishes. And, worse than all, we have noticed that a spring on the door has a singularly inflammatory effect on the disposition of the servants; and after they have been hit or a few dishes broken once or twice by it, the spring suddenly breaks or is cut. Of course _it broke itself_, or _nobody_--that most mysterious mischief-maker--did it. The watch and care of the mistress is the only remedy.