Thus for $9.75 a week one had all the comforts that can be
had in housekeeping, so far as room and service are concerned. There were
four good servants,--cook, scullery maid, and two housemaids. Oh, the
pleasant voices and gentle fashions of behavior of those housemaids! They
were slow, it must be owned; but their results were admirable. In spite of
London smoke and grime, Mrs. ----'s floors and windows were clean; the
grates shone every morning like mirrors, and the glass and silver were
bright. Each morning the smiling cook came up to take our orders for the
meals of the day; each day the grocer and the baker and the butcher
stopped at the door and left the sugar for the "first floor front," the
beef for the "drawing-room," and so on. The smallest article which could
be required in housekeeping was not overlooked. The groceries of the
different floors never got mixed, though how this separateness of stores
was accomplished will for ever remain a mystery to me; but that it was
successfully accomplished the smallness of our bill was the best of
proof,--unless, indeed, as we were sometimes almost afraid, we did now and
then eat up Dr.
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