“And he, can do so still,” replied Aunt Sarah, with a merry twinkle in her kind, clear, gray eyes, “for that pale-green suesine skirt, slightly faded, will make an excellent lining, with cotton for an interlining, and pale green Germantown yarn with which to tie the comfortable.  At small cost you’ll have a dainty, warm spread which will be extremely pretty in the home you are planning with him.  I have several very pretty-old-style patchwork quilts in a box in the attic which I shall give you when you start housekeeping.  That pretty dotted, ungored Swiss skirt will make dainty, ruffled sash curtains for bedroom windows.  Mary, sometimes small beginnings make great endings; if you make the best of your small belongings, some day your homely surroundings will be metamorphosed into what, in your present circumstances, would seem like extravagant luxuries.  An economical young couple, beginning life with a homely, home-made rag carpet, have achieved in middle age, by their own energy and industry, carpets of tapestry and rich velvet, and costly furniture in keeping; but, never—­never, dear, are they so valued, I assure you, as those inexpensive articles, conceived by our inventive brain and manufactured by our own deft fingers during our happy Springtime of life when, with our young lover husband, we built our home nest on the foundation of pure, unselfish, self-sacrificing love.”

Aunt Sarah sighed; memory led her far back to when she had planned her home with her lover, John Landis, still her lover, though both have grown gray together, and shared alike the joys and sorrows of the passing years.  Aunt Sarah had always been the perfect “housemother” or “Haus Frau,” as the Germans phrase it, and on every line of her matured face could be read an anxious care for the family welfare.  Truly could it be said of her, in the language of Henry Ward Beecher:  “Whoever makes home seem to the young dearer and happier is a public benefactor.”

Aunt Sarah said earnestly to Mary, “I wish it were possible for me to impart to young, inexperienced girls, about to become housewives and housemothers, a knowledge of those small economics, so necessary to health and prosperity, taught me by many years of hard work, mental travail, experience and some failures.  In this extravagant Twentieth Century economy is more imperative than formerly.  We feel that we need so much more these days than our grandmothers needed; and what we need, or feel that we need, is so costly.  The housemother has larger problems today than yesterday.

“Every husband should give his wife an allowance according to his income, so that she will be able to systematize her buying and occasionally obtain imperishable goods at less cost.  Being encouraged thus to use her dormant economical powers; she will become a powerful factor in the problem of home-making along lines that will essentially aid her husband in acquiring a comfortable competency, if not a fortune.  Then she will have her husband’s interest truly at heart; will study to spend his money carefully, and to the best advantage; and she herself, even, will be surprised at the many economies which will suggest themselves to save his hard-earned money when she handles that money herself, which certainly teaches her the saving habit and the value of money.