and quite as much love of luxury.  In some instances in this country they spend money recklessly and wickedly, like the heroines of French novels; but as, even in brilliant Paris, the women of the middle classes are notoriously better managers than the men, so we often see, in our scheming America, the same relative superiority.  Often have I heard young men say, “I never knew how to economize until after my marriage;” and who has not seen multitudes of instances where women accustomed to luxury have accepted poverty without a murmur for the sake of those whom they loved?

I remember a young girl, accustomed to the gayest society of New York, who engaged herself to a young naval officer, against the advice of the friends of both.  One of her near relatives said to me, “Of all the young girls I have ever known, she is the least fitted for a poor man’s wife.”  Yet from the very moment of her marriage she brought their joint expenses within his scanty pay, and even saved a little money from it.  Everybody knows such instances.  We hear men denounce the extravagance of women, while those very men spend on wine and cigars, on clubs and horses, twice what their wives spend on their toilet.  If the wives are economical, the husbands perhaps urge them on to greater lavishness.  “Why do you not dress like Mrs. So-and-so?”—­“I can’t afford it.”—­“But I can afford it;” and then, when the bills come in, the talk of extravagance recommences.  At one time in Newport, that lady among the summer visitors who was reported to be Worth’s best customer was also well known to be quite indifferent to society, and to go into it mainly to please her husband, whose social ambition was notorious.

It has often happened to me to serve in organizations where both sexes were represented, and where expenditures were to be made for business or pleasure.  In these I have found, as a rule, that the women were more careful, or perhaps I should say more timid, than the men, less willing to risk anything:  the bolder financial experiments came from the men, as one might expect.  In talking the other day with the secretary of an important educational enterprise, conducted by women, I was surprised to find that it was cramped for money, though large subscriptions were said to have been made to it.  On inquiry it appeared that these ladies, having pledged themselves for four years, had divided the amount received into four parts, and were resolutely limiting themselves, for the first year, to one quarter part of what had been subscribed.  No board of men would have done so.  Any board of men would have allowed far more than a quarter of the sum for the first year’s expenditures, justly reasoning that if the enterprise began well it would command public confidence, and bring in additional subscriptions as time went on.  I would appeal to any one whose experience has been in joint associations of men and women, whether this is not a fair statement of the difference between their ways of working.  It does not prove that women are more honest than men, but that their education or their nature makes them more cautious in expenditure.