Implicit confidence should exist between the housekeeper and the proprietor's wife. This does not mean that the proprietor's wife should take the housekeeper automobile riding. Any proprietor's wife that enters into such a degree of intimacy with any of her husband's employes distinctly displays the hallmarks of plebeanism. The writer does not want to become an iconoclast, but she believes that all business should be conducted on a business basis. There must be an unwavering loyalty to the interests mutually represented, at all times and under all circumstances.

The proprietor's wife that goes to the help's dining-room or to the laundry, presumably to press a skirt or a shirt-waist, but in reality to see what she can see and to hear what she can hear, is disloyal to the management. She will always have poured into her ears stories that will annoy her and keep her worried. There are maids in a hotel always ready to "keep the pot boiling." Such a proprietor's wife not only encourages malicious slander and tattling, but she will soon be asking questions of the inferior help about the housekeeper's management. Soon the inferiors will be giving the orders instead of the housekeeper, and the discipline will be spoiled. Besides, the proprietor's wife will be told imaginary wrongs, and exaggerated stories concerning some maid employed in the hotel, which will necessitate the maid's discharge. Whether the story is real or imaginary, the proprietor's wife is not benefited by the stories she has heard. She should ask herself: Is this loyalty? Isn't it unmistakably the earmark of commonality?

No housekeeper will object to taking orders from the proprietor's wife. The progressive housekeeper is always polite to her employer's wife, though not to the extent of being deceitful. The housekeeper must bear in mind that what is of vital importance to the proprietor of a hotel is of equal importance to the proprietor's wife. The housekeeper tries to work in harmony with them both, which means success of the highest order. To do this, the housekeeper must retain her dignity, often under the most exasperating circumstances. The proprietor's wife is privileged to frequent any part of the hotel she may choose to, but how must a housekeeper feel to see her conversing in the most familiar tones with the waitresses and the chambermaids, and to know that she is listening to malicious slander of the lowest kind. A housekeeper can have no control over the employes where the discipline is thus ruined, or where there is so much unpleasantness arising from unwise interference over trifles, by the proprietor's wife, or from officious meddling by the families of the prominent stockholders.

Tact Can Not be Taught.

"Bumping up against" the proprietor and proprietor's wife or family is one of the most perplexing problems that the housekeeper has to solve. The ability to combat with such a problem can not be imparted by teaching. It has to exist in the housekeeper herself, in the peculiar, individual bent of her nature. No amount of preaching and teaching can ever endow a housekeeper with the ever ready wit characteristic of the "Irish tongue."

The savory reply, "O, Mrs. B., you are a dream of loveliness!" would be sweet to some ears while to others it would be a "harsh discord." It is impossible to teach which ear would or would not be the receptive one. Any attempt on the part of the housekeeper to work up these qualities, "by rule" would only be a failure Even the "Golden Rule" fails sometimes to bring about desired results. The better plan, perhaps, for the housekeeper to adopt is to live her own life, and not try to imitate others. If she tries to be great, she will be nothing; if she tries to be plain, simple, and good, she may be great.