ore my husband's return; and he
had engaged to be with me at dinner. I felt it an imperative duty to
welcome him with a cheerful house, and a pleasant repast after his
journey; but as the time of his arrival drew near, I was more and
more convinced of the impossibility. Like a drove of wild beasts
forced into a corner by a hunting party, we forced our unmanageable
matters to a crisis. The area for old brooms and brushes, tubs,
litter, and slops, was at last narrowed down to the kitchen, and all
that remained of our house-cleaning was to put that place into
something like the semblance of an apartment devoted to culinary
purposes. Dinner, as yet, was unthought of--but the house was clean!

Wearied rather than refreshed by my night of unrest, my arms sore,
and my limbs heavy, I labored with double zeal to get up an
excitement, which should carry me through the remainder of the day.
My head began to feel sensations of giddiness--for I had hardly
eaten since my husband left. Of the pleasures of house-cleaning, I
had at length a surfeit; when a ring, which I knew among all others,
surprised me. I looked at the clock. It was past four, and the
kitchen still in confusion, and the hearth cold.

I sank in a chair-in a swoon from sheer exhaustion. When I awoke to
consciousness, an overturned pale of water was being absorbed by my
clothing, my nose was rejecting with violent aversion the pungency
of a bottle of prime Durham mustard, to which Kitty had applied as
the best substitute for salts which the kitchen afforded; and my
husband, carpet-bag and cane in hand, was pushing his way toward me
with more haste than good speed, as the obstacles witnessed, which
he encountered and overturned.

I was confined to my room a week--which I could not conceal from Mr.
Smith. But he does not even yet know the whole amount of the
breakage, and, thank fortune, he is too much of a man to ask. I am
only afraid that he will succeed in forcing me to admit, that what
he calls his classical proposition is true; that to clean a house
does not require the feat of a Hercules, to wit: turning a river
through it.

This is my story of house-cleaning, and it is in no very high degree
flattering to my housekeeping vanity. Perhaps the thing might be
managed differently. But I don't know. Out of chaos, order comes.
While on this subject, it will be all in place to introduce another
house-cleaning story, which I find floating about in the newspapers.
It p