Set it down to gallantry, chivalry, pride—­custom—­what you will—­but the truth sheds a lustre upon our John of which I mean he shall have the full advantage.  Perhaps the noblest reticence belongs to the Silent Side of him.  I hardly think it is because he has no yearning for sympathy, no need of counsel, when he reluctantly admits to himself that that upon which he has ventured most is, in some measure, a disappointment.  Be this as it may, Mary may learn discretion from him—­and the lesson conned should be forbearance with offensive peculiarities, and, what she names to her sore spirit, lack of appreciation.  Given the conditions of his fidelity and devotion—­and she may well “down on her knees and thank God fasting for a good man’s love.”

CHAPTER II.

The family purse.

In the last chapter I touched, firmly, as became the importance of the subject, upon the pocket question in its bearing upon the happiness of home-life.  The matter is too grave to be disposed of in half-a-dozen paragraphs.  It shall have a chapter of its very own.

There are certain subjects upon which each of us is afraid to speak for fear of losing temper, and becoming vehement.  This matter of “The Family Purse” is one of the few topics in all the range of theory and practice, concerning which I feel the necessity of putting on curb and bridle when I have to deal with it, and conscience urges just dealing with all parties.

I have set down elsewhere what I crave leave to repeat here and with deliberate emphasis.

If I were asked, “What, to the best of your belief, is the most prolific and general source of heart-burnings, contentions, harsh judgment, and secret unhappiness among respectable married people who keep up the show, even to themselves, of reciprocal affection?” my answer would not halt for an instant.

“The crying need of a mutual understanding with respect to the right ownership of the family income.”

The example of the good old Friend, who, in giving his daughters in marriage, stipulated that each should be paid weekly, without asking for it, a certain share of her husband’s income, is refreshing as indicating what one husband had learned by his own experience.  It goes no further in the absence of proof that the sons-in-law kept the pledge imposed upon them as suitors, or that in keeping it, they did not cause their respective wives to wish themselves dead, and out of the way of gibe and grudge, every time the prescribed tax was doled out to them.

Nor do I admit the force of the implication made by a certain writer upon this topic, that the crookedness in the matter of family finances is “separation and hostility between the sexes, brought about by the advancement and equality of women.”  Wives in all ages and in all countries, have felt the painful injustice of virtual pauperism, and struggled vainly for freedom.