"My husband is delicate, and I don't like him to have cold meals at night, so when 'General Jane' is out (and I let her go out as often as possible), we have dinner laid, and soup, a hot dish such as braised cutlets, chicken en casserole, stewed steak (often it's silverside really), with vegetables in it, and a dish of potatoes put ready on a heater on a side table I keep for the purpose. There is a cold sweet, so we do very well. I clear everything away and put dishes, etc., into the lift, which takes about six or seven minutes. "Our bedrooms are linoleum floored and very empty. My own researches into domesticity prove to me that a crowded room is a bane to the housemaid. Our ex-parlourmaid, an admirable worker, told me that our rooms 'took half the time to clean than most.'" What the house-parlourmaid said: "Your rooms take half the time to clean of most, ma'am, and then look clean, which is more than some do." [Illustration: _PLATE XX & XXa_ SUGG'S "COMPACT" GAS KITCHENER is fitted with one large and one small oven, a great boon where the amount of cooking varies. Underneath the small oven is seen a closet for warming plates. The Hot Plate shown separately is fitted with six boiling burners and a grill burner.] II "I have an idea about gas cookers: they should be made longer and not so high, then they could be mounted at a convenient height. But I suppose they are planned to take up as little space as possible. It's all the stooping that makes domestic work so tiring. "Jane does not go out until six o'clock on weekdays, and 3.30 every Sunday. We always go out to tea on Sundays, and the supper is left ready. We keep the house clean and have nice cooking and things well served and are very comfortable. I have people to lunch now and then and intimate friends to dinner, and by means of my hot plate and careful choosing of food, our Jane is dressed for lunch and able to wait at table, and I doubt if it occurred to anyone that there was not a cook in the kitchen. Not that it would have mattered if it had!" It is not considered derogatory for an educated, refined woman to become a hospital nurse. Is the nursing of the sick more important to the Nation than the proper feeding, housing, and bringing up of the rising generation? [Illustration: _PLATE XXI_ A KITCHEN IN A SMALL NON-BASEMENT HOUSE The gas appliances here consist of a gas cooker and plate rack; a gas fire on which is fixed a boiler serving the storage tank above, and the circulating system to every tap in the house; copper suitable for home-washing, etc. The wash copper is fitted with a pipe which carries the steam into the kitchener flue, and is also fitted with a tap which serves to draw off dirty water. This combination of gas appliances is a veritable boon in servantless or one-servant houses or flats.] CHAPTER VI WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT