ht, as you do
when Bridget makes your bed! If you tuck things in one by one sometimes
they will come out, but if you tuck them in as we have done they are
sure to stay. Now for the top."

She turned over the spread, blankets, and sheet, and laid them flat on
the spread, and then turned them under themselves, making a smooth,
rather narrow fold, close up to the place the pillows were going to
stand.

"If the sheet was mussed I would not do this," she explained. "Then I
would just lay all the clothes back under the pillows; but when the
sheet is fresh it looks nice this way. Beat up the pillows, smooth them
out, and stand them up evenly. Remember, if you have a white spread with
a fringe on it and a muslin valance around the bed, the spread is not
tucked in at all, but after the bed is finished and tucked in all
around, it is laid on and left hanging over sides and foot.

"If, instead of a spread, you have a figured cover, or one made of lace
or muslin, you do not use any spread, but put that on over the blankets
during the day and take it off at night. A roll covered with the same
stuff is used with such a bed cover, and at night this, too, is put away
and the pillows brought out from the cupboard and put on when the bed is
opened. The bed in the guest-room is like that; you know it has a pretty
cover and a roll. But whatever you have, it is always nice to have the
bed opened for one at night, the clothes folded smoothly back, the
spread laid away and the pillows put down flat, so all one has to do is
to slip in."

"I know," Margaret replied. "It makes you feel sleepy to see a bed like
that."

"Now let us take the wash-stand," her aunt went on, after she had passed
her hands all over the bed as though she were ironing it, leaving it as
smooth as a nice white table. "Get the cloths from the bathroom, a clean
white one, you know, and a clean colored one; and the soap."

She showed Margaret how to wash everything out neatly, beginning with
the tooth-brush mug and soap-dish, and she was told to look carefully
and see if they were both clean in the bottom, "because probably they
are not," she said. The wash-bowl was washed with soap, especially where
there was a greasy streak around it, and the pitcher was filled, and
wiped where the water dripped down the front. The dark cloth was used on
the rest of the china; it was better to have two cloths of different
colors, her aunt explained, to avoid mixing them.

After the