“Lulie,” said Charlie to me one morning at the breakfast-table, “things are getting all out of gear about this house, somehow or other.”

I put down the coffee-pot with a resigned thump and asked my lord, with an injured air, to please explain himself.

“Well, when mother was alive I never knew what it was to sit down to my breakfast later than six o’clock in summer or seven in winter.”

“How did she manage it, Charlie?” I asked, very meekly.

“Why, by getting up early herself.  No servant on the face of the globe is going to get up at daybreak and go to work in earnest when she knows her mistress is sound asleep in bed.  I will tell you how mother did:  she had a pretty good-sized bell, that she kept on a table by her bedside, and every morning, as soon as her eyes were open, she would give such a peal with that old bell that all the servants on the premises knew that ’Mistress was awake and up,’ and bestirred themselves accordingly.  There was no discount on mother:  that was the way she made father a rich man, too.”

“But, Charlie, you’re already a rich man, and why on earth should we get out of bed at daybreak just because your mother and father did so before us?”

“Of course, Lulie,” said Charlie, the least little bit coldly, “I have no desire in the world to force you to conform to my views:  I only told you how mother did it.”

Reader, you know how I loved Charlie, and after that I out-larked the lark in early rising; and although Charlie and I did little more than gape in each other’s faces for an hour or two, and wish breakfast would come, and wonder what made them take so long, he was perfectly satisfied that we were both on the road that was to make us healthier, wealthier and wiser.

Among other points on which my husband and I were mutually agreed was a liking for good strong coffee, and we also held in common one decided opinion, and that was, that our coffee was gradually becoming anything but good and strong.

Charlie broached the subject first.  “Lulie, our coffee is getting to be perfectly undrinkable,” said he one morning, putting his cup down with a face of disgust.

“It is indeed, Charlie:  it’s perfectly villainous.  Milly ought to be ashamed of herself:  I shall speak to her again after breakfast.”

“Maybe you don’t give out enough coffee?” suggested Charlie.

“I don’t know how much Milly takes,” I replied, innocently.

“Takes!  Do you mean to say that you don’t know how much coffee goes out of your pantry, Lulie?  I don’t wonder we never have any fit to drink!”

If I had been of an argumentative turn, I would have asked Charlie to explain how giving the cook carte blanche in the matter of quantity should have had such a disastrous effect in the matter of quality.  But I was not of an argumentative turn, so I took no notice of his queer logic.

“Why should I bother about every spoonful of coffee, Charlie?  You assured me, when I first came here, that every servant you had was as honest as you or I, and I’m sure Milly knows better than I do how much coffee she ought to take.”