These people forget that all dirt and dust is not of greater value than spotless cleanliness.  Let us look calmly at the problem for a few minutes.  Here is a housewife who cannot afford help to keep her house as spotless as her instincts and her training desire.  It is simply impossible for her, personally, to go over the house daily with rag, duster and dustpan.  If she attempts it, as she does sometimes—­she overworks, and a breakdown is the result.  What, then, is the sensible, the reasonable, the only thing she should do?  Sit down and “worry” over her “untidy house”; lament that “the stairs have not been swept since day before yesterday; that the parlor was not dusted this morning; the music-room looks simply awful,” and cry that “if Mrs. Brown were to come in and see my wretchedly untidy house, I’m sure I should die of shame!” Would this help matters?  Would one speck of dirt be removed as the result of the worry, the wailing, and the tears?  Not a speck.  Every particle would remain just as before.

Yet other things would not be as they were before.  No woman could feel as I have suggested this “worriting creature” felt, without gendering irritation in husband, children and friends.  Is any house that was ever built worth the alienation of dear ones?  What is the dust, dirt, disorder, of a really untidy house—­I am supposing an extraordinary case—­compared with the irritation caused by a worrying housewife?

Furthermore:  such a woman is almost sure to break down her own health and become an irritable neurasthenic or hypochondriac, and thus add to the burdens of those she loves.

There are women who, instead of following this course, make themselves wretched—­and everyone else around them—­by the worry of contrasting their lot with that of some one more fortunately situated than they. She has a husband who earns more money than does hers; such an one has a larger allowance and can afford more help—­the worry, however, is the same, little matter what form it takes, and worry is the destructive thing.

What, then, shall a woman do, who has to face the fact that she cannot gratify her desire to keep her house immaculate, either because she has not the strength to do it, or the money to hire it done.  The old proverb will help her:  “What can’t be cured must be endured.”  There is wonderful help in the calm, full, direct recognition of unpleasant facts.  Look them squarely in the face.  Don’t dodge them, don’t deny them.  Know them, understand them, then defy them to destroy your happiness.  If you can’t dust your house daily, dust it thrice a week, or twice, or once, and determine that you will be happy in spite of the dust.  The real comfort of the house need not thereby be impaired, as there is a vast difference between your scrupulous cleanliness and careless untidiness.  Things may be in order even though the floor has a little extra dust on, or the furniture has not been dusted for four days.