DOMESTIC SERVICE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
have been intensely interested in the letters you printed on this subject. I most thoroughly agree with the one from "M. ILL" I am an old woman, wife of a retired clergyman. I have lived in Northern England, Kent, near London, in Warwick- shire, and now here. I have sometimes had five maids at once, and up to this time—forty years and two months of housekeeping —I have never once had any real difficulty in getting a servant. If they stay seven years with me I give them a copper kettle. I always fix their wages with them, and let them come and see me and the house and have tea with the maids, and then ask if they will come. I explain their work minutely, but I let them choose when they do it, with certain reservations of things which must be ready by such an hour daily. I give them one afternoon and evening out weekly, and the Sunday after 1 o'clock in turn. When I can, I raise wages once a year. I am just giving my seventh kettle. Six or seven maids stayed far beyond seven years and left to be married. Two left of their own accord, but soon wrote and asked to come back! Three left from sudden illness; three when my husband retired; seven left to be married. Last winter my husband and I were both seriously ill, and away four and a half months. My cook had left to be married the day after we had left home. I wondered how in these war days I should get one, for I was in Scotland. I wanted the cook here. One offered to come. Her character was good, and she came, and is the greatest comfort. I have four maids now, as I need a maid- attendant till I am stronger. We do all our washing at home, with a day and a quarter's help from our gardener's wife. My maids are always my true and valued friends, and I tell them all little items of interest as they occur in the home or world. They will sit up at nights if we are ill, they help me garden, they will- ingly do anything extra I need. I give a fortnight's holiday and two days for travelling to any maid living near here; three weeks' and two days to those whose homes are far off, and I think I am prob- ably the happiest, or almost the happiest, old mistress in England. I just love my dear maids. They are always respectful, too. I have no keys and never have had, and I tell them so when they come, and only once did I miss, I think, two half-crowns, long ago, and that girl had to be sent away for other reasons in a few weeks. I now live quite in the country, one and a quarter miles from a village and four from any town. This is my record for forty years. Servants need and value affectionate sympathy in their sorrows and in their joys. I have had serious illnesses and have always had one or more dear, good maids ready to sit up all night with a very happy and thankful old mistress.—I am,
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