Which of the two began it I cannot tell, but a certain antagonism has
grown up between these two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic
peace. At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies
ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a stupendous nature.

I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, upon the family's
leaving town for a short holiday, was enjoined to see that the birds in
the nursery (canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we came back
we found them all starved to death. She had given them sand, but, alas!
no seed. This was a girl from the country, who, one would think, would
have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does not expect much
intelligence from Arcadia. When our last importation (an
under-housemaid) 'turned on the gas' in the upper apartments as she was
directed to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable;
she had not been accustomed to gas. On the other hand, when her
mistress told her to 'look to the fire' of a certain room, I contend we
had a right to expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not so,
however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did you not look to it, as I
told you?' the girl replied, 'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I
looked at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to attach some
sort of igneous power to the human eye.

Each of these young ladies came to us very highly recommended by the
wife of the clergyman of her native place. Surely, in the curriculum of
the village school, something else beside the catechism ought to have
been included; yet, of the things they were certain to be set to
do--the merest first principles of domestic service--they had been
taught nothing; and in learning them at our expense they cost us ten
times their wages.

It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a young girl who has never
been out to service before, you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety,
and must not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, things
are not very much better when you engage an experienced hand. The lady
of the house should not, of course, expect too much (in these days she
must be of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into _that_ error);
she will think it necessary to warn the new arrival--although she
'knows her place' and is 'a thorough housemaid'--that a velvet pile
carpet, for example, should not be brushed backwards. But on more
obvious matters she will probably leave the