I never like to
interfere in my wife's department. I assume it as a fact that she
knows her own business better than I do.

Our domestic establishment consisted at this time of a cook, chamber
maid, and waiter. This was an ample force, my wife considered, for
all purposes of house-cleaning, and had so announced to the
individuals concerned some days before she mentioned the matter
incidentally to me. We had experienced, in common with others, our
own troubles with servants, but were now excellently well off in
this respect. Things had gone on for months with scarcely a jar.
This was a pleasant feature in affairs, and one upon which we often
congratulated ourselves.

When I came home at dinner-time, on the day the anticipated
house-cleaning had been mentioned to me, I found my wife with a long
face.

"Are you not well?" I asked.

"I'm well enough," Mrs. Sunderland answered, "but I'm out of all
patience with Ann and Hannah."

"What is the matter with them?" I asked, in surprise.

"They are both going at the end of this week."

"Indeed! How comes that? I thought they were very well satisfied."

"So they were, all along, until the time for house-cleaning
approached. It is too bad!"

"That's it--is it?"

"Yes. And I feel out of all patience about it. It shows such a want
of principle."

"Is John going too?" I asked.

"Dear knows! I expect so. He's been as sulky as he could be all the
morning--in fact, ever since I told him that he must begin taking up
the carpets to-morrow and shake them."

"Do you think Ann and Hannah will really go?" I asked.

"Of course they will. I have received formal notice to supply their
places by the end of this week, which I must do, somehow or other."

The next day was Thursday, and, notwithstanding both cook and
chamber maid had given notice that they were going on Saturday, my
wife had the whole house knocked into _pi_, as the printers say,
determined to get all she could out of them.

When I made my appearance at dinner-time, I found all in precious
confusion, and my wife heated and worried excessively. Nothing was
going on right. She had undertaken to get the dinner, in order that
Ann and Hannah might proceed uninterruptedly in the work of
house-cleaning; but as Ann and Hannah had given notice to quit in
order to escape this very house-cleaning, they were in no humor to
put things ahead. In consequence, they had "poked about and done
nothing," to use Mrs. Sunderland's o