Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/1982

1780 from the bed, and straighten and arrange the curtains and counterpane. A bedroom should be cleaned like this every week. As modern furniture is now nearly always French-polished, it should often be rubbed with an old silk rubber, or a fine cloth or duster, to keep it free from smears. Three or four times a year, any of the polishes, for which we give recipes, may be applied with very great success, as any of them make French-polished furniture look very well. One precaution must be taken not to put too much of the polish on at one time, and to rub, not smear it over the articles.

Lights.—The chamber candlesticks should be brought down and cleaned, gas and electric globes cleaned, and the parlour lamps trimmed—and here the housemaid's utmost care is required. In cleaning candlesticks, as in every other cleaning, she should have cloths and brushes kept for that purpose alone; the knife used to scrape them should be applied to no other purpose; the tallow-grease should be thrown into a box kept for the purpose; the same with everything connected with the lamp-trimming; always bearing in mind, that without perfect cleanliness, which involves occasional scalding, no lamp can be kept in order. After scalding a lamp, it should be rinsed out with a little spirits; this will prevent the oil sputtering on first being lighted after the scalding.

Evening Duties.—In summer-time the windows of all the bedrooms, which have been closed during the heat of the day, should be thrown open for an hour or so after sunset, in order to air them. Before dark they should be closed, the bed-clothes turned down, and the night-clothes laid in order for use when required. During winter, where fires are required in the dressing-rooms, they should be lighted an hour before the usual time of retiring, placing a fire-guard before each fire. At the same time, the night-things on the horse should be placed before it to be aired. The upper housemaid may be required to assist her mistress to undress and put her dress in order for the morrow; in which case her duties are very much those of the lady's-maid. And now the fire is made up for the night, the fireguard replaced, and everything in the room in order for the night, the housemaid taking care to leave the night-candle and matches together in a convenient place, should they be required. On leisure days the housemaid should be able to do some needlework for her mistress such as turning and mending sheets and darning the house-linen, or assist her in anything she may think fit to give her to do. For this reason it is almost essential that a house-maid, in a small family, should be an expert needlewoman.

Spring Cleaning.— This general cleaning usually takes place in the spring or early summer, when the warm curtains of winter are replaced by the light and cheerful muslin ones. Carpets are at the same time taken up and beaten. In this case she will probably have made up her mind to try the cleaning process, and arranged with the company to send for them on the morning when cleaning commenced. It is hardly