“But one thing is certain,” said my wife,—­“that, though I have had an antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I have spent more money than many of them for real comforts.  While I had young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore Cashmeres and diamonds.  I thought it better to pay extra wages to a really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so much lace locked away in my drawers.  We always were able to go into the country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and carriage for daily driving,—­by which means we afforded, as a family, very poor patronage to the medical profession.  Then we built our house, and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other people think they must have, we put in a profusion of bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having.  There never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and dressing.”

“Your mother has had,” said I, “what is the great want in America, perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way others go.  I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among Americans about economy than among Europeans.  ‘I cannot afford it’ is more seldom heard among us.  A young man beginning life, whose income may be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,—­to hand it out freely, and put back his change without counting it,—­to wear a watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young millionnaire.  None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living, and declares that he cannot get along on his salary.  The same is true of young girls, and of married men and women too,—­the whole of them are ashamed of economy.  The cares that wear out life and health in many households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any promise from the Bible,—­it is not care for ‘food convenient,’ or for comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a wider one.

“The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when customers do not pay, or wages are cut down,