But the personality of the parents is, of course, the chief cause of order or disorder. A man who loves order has a great influence for order, and a man who likes to go to bed in his boots and spit on the floor has an almost overwhelming influence in the other direction. He may be an equally good fellow in all other respects, but his wife, if she has a tidy nature, may quarrel bitterly with him; whereas if she is more easy-going she may remain his good friend, through not feeling constant irritation and insult because of his ways. It is a fact that a woman the law of whose being is cleanliness and order at all costs may, to a slovenly man, make a most tiresome wife. Her little home may be shining and spotless—as far as anything can be shining and spotless in Lambeth—at the cost of all her vitality and all her temper. She herself may, as a result of her desperate battle with dirt and discouragement, be a scold and an unreasonable being. She cannot be got away from in two rooms where a light and fire can only be afforded in one, and she may be the greatest trial in an always difficult life. In such homes as £1 a week can buy in London, the women who do not insist upon doing the impossible, and fretting themselves and everybody else because it is impossible, often arrive at better results—with regard at least to the human beings about them—than the women who put furniture first and the peace of the family second. And this even if the rooms in their charge do look as though their dark places would not bear inspection. The mother who is not disturbed by a little mud on the floor has vitality left to deal with more important matters. To manage a husband and six children in three rooms on round about £1 a week needs, first and foremost, wisdom and loving-kindness, and after that as much cleanliness and order as can be squeezed in. The case where the man loves order and the woman is careless may also be prolific of strained relations between the parents. But a steady woman who is not as tidy as her husband might wish has many ways of producing a semblance of order which makes for peace while he is there, and the friction is less likely to be intense. Of course, if both parents are orderly by nature all is well. The home will be clean, and the children will be brought up in tidy ways, much to their advantage. But if there are to be constant and bitter recriminations over the state of the house, better, for the man’s sake, the children’s sake, and the woman’s sake, a dingy room where peace and quiet are than a spotless abode where no love is. CHAPTER III HOUSING