Excerpt from the Preface: "About two years ago I began writing a series of short articles in the pages of the 'Lady's Pictorial' on the absorbing subject of housekeeping, meaning to confine myself strictly to the house and home of the British matron who begins life with little money and less experience, never thinking anything more would come of them than a mere temporary access of work for a few weeks; but I had not begun them for more than a month when, through the office of the paper, a regular and increasing mass of correspondence began to reach me, asking questions on every subject under the sun, from the proper management of a house and the feeding of a baby to the fearful inquiry whether I thought a wife should leave her husband or not when she discovered all too late she liked somebody else better than she did her lord and master. Since then I have become a species of 'mother confessor' to hundreds of unknown and valued friends in all parts of the world."