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CHAP. X.
Directions to the Housemaid.
IF your master and lady go into the country for a week or more, never wash the bedchamber or diningroom until just the hour before you expect them to return: thus the rooms will be perfectly clean to receive them, and you will not be at the trouble to wash them so soon again.
I am very much offended with those ladies who are so proud and lazy, that they will not be at the pains of stepping into the garden to pluck a rose, but keep an odious implement, sometimes in the bedchamber itself, or at least in a dark closet adjoining, which they make use of to ease their worst necessities; and you are the usual carriers away of the pan; which makes not only the chamber, but even their clothes, offensive to all who come near. Now to cure them of this odious practice, let me advise you, on whom the office lies, to convey away this utensil, that you will do it openly, down the great stairs, and in the presence of the footmen; and if any body knocks, to open the street door, while you have the vessel filled in your hands; this, if any thing can, will make your lady take the pains of evacuating her person in the proper place, rather than expose her filthiness to all the menservants in the house.
Leave a pail of dirty water with the mop in it, a coal-box, a bottle, a broom, a chamberpot, and
such
