This little manual makes no literary pretensions whatever. In preparing it, I have been concerned only for its practical usefulness, and I send it to press asking for it no other consideration than that which its teachings may be found to deserve.<br><br>The need of such a volume of homely hints upon practical matters was first suggested by the numerous letters of inquiry which came to me from all parts of the country, during the period in which I conducted a household weekly paper, and there is hardly a paragraph in the following pages which is not in some sort a reply to more than one earnest question. If the answers given shall prove of advantage to the questioners, and to others in like circumstances, the little book will have done its whole duty.