AS we look around silently among the many young housekeepers, we think we hear some of them say, or, if they don’t, they ought to, “I am ashamed to ask any one into my chambers, for my beds are a perpetual vexation to me. They look as if tossed up by a whirl-wind; the mattress laid on unevenly, every inequality as visible as if the occupants had just risen. The sheets and blankets never find their proper place, and the pillows are as hard and knotty as if made of cotton batting. I try to teach my girl how to do the work properly, but unfortunately am too ignorant myself to speak with authority, and I have no doubt she is aware of my deficiencies, so my words are idle breath to her.” If you don’t know how to _tell_ a girl, go to the rooms with her and _show_ her how you wish the work done. That will be the easiest mode for you, and more likely to be remembered by the pupil. “Alas! I don’t know how to make a bed neatly myself. I never attempted it in my life, until I was married. Ah! if I ever have daughters, they shall be taught how to care for their own rooms, and make their own beds neatly, however rich we may become, or however many servants we may employ.” That is wise and right. Though riches may relieve one of much hard labor, they should not enervate, or incapacitate for such an amount of exercise as is necessary to secure a vigorous muscular development, and also enable one, in an emergency, to step in and perform with ease and independence whatever there is to be done. Riches cannot insure us against a “hitch” in the domestic machinery now and then, and every girl should be so taught that, in her father’s house or in her own, she can bring “order out of confusion” by an independent use of her own hands. It is, as I have said in an earlier talk, important that once a week, at least, everything should be removed from the bedsteads in order that all the dust and lint, which will lodge about them, may be removed, and occasionally they need a faithful washing, to rid them of the dust and lint which will settle in the slats, about the joints, springs, and moldings. The mattress should be thrown up every morning for a good airing, and when this is done turn it over, under side up, and then proceed to make the bed. Making beds is a very simple thing. Every housekeeper may have some rules differing from her neighbor in this as well as in every department of labor; but there are some that are common to all.