But where one maid alone cooks, cleans, waits on table, and furthermore serves as lady’s maid and valet, she must necessarily be limited in the performance of each of these duties in direct proportion to their number.  Even though she be eagerly willing, quality must give way before quantity produced with the same equipment, or if quality is necessary then quantity must give way.  In the house of a fashionable gay couple like the Lovejoys’ for instance, the time spent in “maiding” or “valeting” has to be taken from cleaning or cooking.  Besides cleaning and cooking, the one maid in their small apartment can press out Mrs. Lovejoy’s dresses and do a little mending, but she can not sit down and spend one or two hours going over a dress in the way a specialist maid can.  Either Mrs. Lovejoy herself must do the sewing or the housework, or one or the other must be left undone.

=THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS=

It is certainly a greater pleasure and incentive to work for those who are appreciative than for those who continually find fault.  Everyone who did war work can not fail to remember how easy it was to work for, or with, some people, and how impossible to get anything done for others.  And just as the “heads” of work-rooms or “wards” or “canteens” were either stimulating or dispiriting, so must they and their types also be to those who serve in their households.

This, perhaps, explains why some people are always having a “servant problem”; finding servants difficult to get, more difficult to keep, and most difficult to get efficient work from.  It is a question whether the “servant problem” is not more often a mistress problem.  It must be!  Because, if you notice, those who have woes and complaints are invariably the same, just as others who never have any trouble are also the same.  It does not depend on the size of the house; the Lovejoys never have any trouble, and yet their one maid of all work has a far from “easy” place, and a vacancy at Brookmeadows is always sought after, even though the Oldnames spend ten months of the year in the country.  Neither is there any friction at the Golden Hall or Great Estates, even though the latter house is run by the butler—­an almost inevitable cause of trouble.  These houses represent a difference in range of from one alone, to nearly forty on the household payroll.

=THOSE WHO HAVE PERSISTENT “TROUBLE"=

It might be well for those who have trouble to remember a few rules which are often overlooked:  Justice must be the foundation upon which every tranquil house is constructed.  Work must be as evenly divided as possible; one servant should not be allowed liberties not accorded to all.

It is not just to be too lenient, any more than it is just to be unreasonably strict.  To allow impertinence or sloppy work is inexcusable, but it is equally inexcusable to show causeless irritability or to be overbearing or rude.  And there is no greater example of injustice than to reprimand those about you because you happen to be in a bad humor, and at another time overlook offenses that are greater because you are in an amiable mood.