FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



American women have to scramble into the 

 housekeeping business, so to speak, over- 

 worked from the very start and with no 

 servants, or else a single inefficient one, are 

 together responsible for this common want 

 of order and method. True, the American 

 house where two or three servants are always 

 kept is, perhaps, the daintiest in the world ; 

 but the reason for this exquisite refinement 

 of detail is that the woman who is rich 

 enough to pay the high wages demanded 

 on this side does not of necessity obtain 

 their equivalent in skilled service. Unless 

 she neglect her duty as hostess and I have 

 yet to meet the American woman whose 

 peer as a hostess is to be found outside of 

 her own country she still has to attend to 

 all the details herself, though spared the 

 hard and wearing work which falls to the 

 lot of the immense army of her less fortunate 

 sisters ; she has leisure for those details, 

 therefore, for the proper performance of 

 which her servants are incapable, and in 

 consequence the hand of the refined woman 

 lends a grace not to be seen where even the 

 best of trained servants attend to all the 



