I remember hearing, as a child, a woman say of another who was an immaculate housekeeper: "She swept her sons to the Devil." A puzzling saying to me then, a terrible one to me now, for it was true. Those sons were never allowed in the house till they had taken off their shoes; they were not allowed in the yard because they made a litter. Naturally, they went to those places which opened to them most easily--the street, the saloon, the state's prison. This is an extreme case, but there are countless others, grading from those as serious as this to those in which homes just miss being comfortable on account of tiny, gnat-like annoyances. They are cases of failure in the woman's profession, and, trivial or great, they arise from the same cause, from the neglect of that thing we don't like about housekeeping--its unique characteristic--its _effacement_. Our work as housekeepers is only notable when it is not noticed. It must be done, delighted in and loved but seldom talked about and always held subservient to other ends. Housekeeping is the servant, silent and effaced, of peace, and home-likeness and health and joy, and of all that we call spiritual in those who form our households. And therefore, the housekeeper's life is full of little secrets; secrets of suffering and weariness, secrets of amusement and joy. But they are secrets which spoil her work if they are told. If one is a martyr, one must not tell about it. The saints who wore hair shirts did not cut a hole in the front of their clothes to show them. The woman who is always telling how much she has to do and how much she "has to put up with," has not stopped at cutting a hole in her clothes, she wears her hair shirt on the outside to scratch other people with. Do you remember Mr. Pip's sister, in "Great Expectations," who constantly reminded the family that she never took her apron off? It is natural in this connection to say a word about the care of the housewife's own health and cheerfulness. Better even than to conceal weariness and depression is to have none to conceal. Some women are for years driven and spurred beyond reason by what we please ourselves with calling conscientiousness or energy, but find at last that it was undisciplined ambition, or a stupid lack of system, or that we were blinded to the comfort and pleasure of other people by a determination to sacrifice ourselves.