Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE ENTRANCE-HALL. The evil of side doors—Difficulties with cooks—Who is to answer the door ?—Four classes of applicants—Arrangements for tradespeople—Visitors—Furniture of the hall—Warming the passages —Dirt and door-mats—The door-step— Charwomen. Many of the most respectable old houses in London and other large cities have only one street door and no area gate; and this is a great advantage, for of all inventions for the demoralization of households, the side or servant's door is the one which does its work most surely. There is no oversight of it; and neither master nor mistress can tell what is going on below-stairs, or at the back of the house, when the shutters are closed and the family are at dinner, or in the drawing-room in the evening. The side door had its origin in a pride, or false shame, which could not bear to see a vestige ofthe working of the machinery of the house, and in that tendency to separate the ornamental from the necessary part of the household economy which has worked so disastrously for us all, making us, first, unwilling to take a practical share in the management of our houses, so widening the class division between mistress and servant; and secondly, has thrown us into such a state of dependence upon our subordinates that the boldest of us dare not venture into the kitchen except at stated hours; and then, having received the programme of the proposed arrangements for the day from the cook, we are expected to go away and be no further hindrance to the eleven o'clock luncheon, which is one of the five solid meals daily required to sustain life in the hardships of service. Most ladies know what it is to wince under the sharp tongues of their cooks, who " don't like to have missuses come messing about in their kitchens," and their sarcasms upon... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.