practise economy out of doors, any more than his wife understood it in. The captain could not put on a soiled pair of gloves, he could not give up his social habits, he never dreamt of such a thing as not going to the opera several times in the season, and to the theatres ad libitum, his wife being often with him, it never occurred to him to give up his daily bottle of expensive wine, and he rarely scrupled to take a cab, when an omnibus, or his own legs, would have served as well. They began housekeeping upon three servants; two maids, and a tiger, who eat as much as the whole house put together. The house was larger than that of Mrs. Lance, and they kept more company, but two efficient servants, with proper management, might have done the work well; only it was necessary, for appearance' sake, so both Captain and Mrs. Courtenay deemed, to take (not being able to afford a footman) a third maid or a tiger: and they took the last-named article. Next came the babies, and with the advent of the first, the tiger was discharged and a third maid taken in his place and now that there were three children there were four maids.

Captain and Mrs. Courtenay also liked to go out of town in autumn, and they were fond of gaiety, went to parties and gave them. Their housekeeping was on an extensive scale compared with their income: Mrs. Courtenay was no manager, she knew literally nothing of practical domestic details when she married, and she did not seek to acquire them; her servants were improvident and wasteful, she could not shut her eyes to that; but her attempts at remedying the evil only amounted to an occasional storm of scolding, and to the sending off cook after cook. They got into debt, they grew deeper into it with every month and year, and Captain Courtenay, besieged out of his seven senses, was fain to patch up matters by borrowing money of a gentleman named Ishmael Levi. Of course he fleeced him wholesale.

Their real troubles of life were looming ominously near, the fruits of their short-sighted union, of their improvident course. Captain Courtenay and his wife, with their five hundred a year, had launched into marriage, their friends crowing over their sure prospects: Mr. Lance and Annis, and their despised three hundred, had been browbeat in society for daring to risk it: but the despised ones were conquerors, and the lauded ones had failed. How was it? The one party had looked their future full in the face, and deliberately resolved to confine their simple desires within less than their income, arming themselves against temptation; the other had not so looked at it, but had got themselves into embarrassment, through what they would have called sheer inability to keep out of it. They had not calculated; they had begun life too expensively; had not controlled their self-indulgences; everything was on too large a scale and now neither knew how to go back to a smaller.

They were sitting together one dull winter's day, very dull themselves, and talking over the aspect of affairs in a dull strain. The aspect was worse than either thought: Mrs. Courtenay really did not know its extent, and the captain was careless and blind. The captain had received his quarterly income, and had immediately parted with most of it, for sundry demands were pressing. How they were to go on to the next quarter, and how the Christmas bills were to be paid, was hidden in the womb of the future.

They are so much larger than usual," murmured Captain Courtenay

VOL. XLIII.

2 A

drawing a china basket towards him, the bills' receptacle, and leisurely proceeding to unfold some of them.

"Each year brings additional expense," remarked Mrs. Courtenay. "Four servants cost more than three: not to speak of the children though they are but little expense yet."

Captain Courtenay had the contents of one of the bills under his eye at the time his wife spoke. "Little expense, you say, Augusta! I suppose this is for them, and it's pretty near 207. It's headed Clark's Baby-linen Warehouse.'

"I meant in the matter of food. Of course they have to be clothed : and I don't know anything more costly than infants' dress. Cambric, and lace, and bassinettes, and all the rest of it."

"So I should think," quoth the captain; "here's thirty shillings for six shirts. Do you put babies into shirts ?"

"What else should we put them into ?"

"How long are they a foot? Five shillings a shirt! Why, it's nearly as much as I give for mine."

"Delicate French cambric, trimmed with Valenciennes," explained Mrs. Courtenay. "We can't dress a baby in hopsacking."

"Lace is the largest item in the bill. Here's three pounds eighteen shillings for lace, Augusta."

"Oh, they are dreadful little things to destroy their cap borders. When they get three or four months old, up go their hands and away they pull, and the lace is soon in tatters. This last darling baby has already destroyed two."

"Throw off their caps and let them pull at their own heads, if they want to pull," cried the captain. "That's how I should cure them, Augusta.' "Would you," retorted Mrs. Courtenay. "A baby without a cap is frightful. Except for its long white robes, nobody could tell whether it was a monkey or a child."

"Some of this lace is charged half-a-crown a yard, and some three and sixpence."

"The three and sixpenny was for the christening. Of course that had to be good."

"I saw some lace marked up at twopence a yard, yesterday, in Oxford-street, quite as pretty as any the baby wears, for all I can see. That would be good enough to tear, Augusta."

"My dear, as you don't understand babies' things, the remark may be excused," said Mrs. Courtenay. "Common rubbish of cotton lace is not fit

year!"

"Hallo!" shouted the captain, with an emphasis that startled his wife, as he opened another of the bills, "here's 947. for meat this "So I saw," mournfully replied Mrs. Courtenay. "How can we have eaten meat to that amount? We can't have eaten it."

"I suppose we have not eaten it, you and I; but it has been consumed in the house," was the testy rejoinder of Mrs. Courtenay, whose conscience secretly accused her of something being radically wrong in the housekeeping department, and which she, its head, did not know how to set to rights.

"Besides the fish and poultry bills, and lots of game we had sent us, and I sometimes dining at the club! How is it, Augusta ?"

"I wish I could tell how it is," she answered: "that is, I wish I could tell how to lessen it. The bills come in weekly, and I look them over, and there's not a single joint that seems to have been had in unnecessarily. They do eat enormously in the kitchen, but how is it to be prevented? We cannot lock up the food."

"The servants must be outrageously extravagant."

"I often tell you so, but you don't listen, and I am at continual warfare with the cook. As to the butter that goes, it must melt, for it never can be used. She makes out that you and I and the children eat four pounds of fresh every week. And they are so exacting about their own dinner. They are not satisfied with what remains of meat may be in the house, and making it do, meat that I know would be amply sufficient, but must have something in addition-pork chops, or sausages, or something of the sort. And thus the meat bill runs up."

Captain Courtenay answered only by a gesture of annoyance. Perhaps his wife took it to reflect upon herself.

"But what am I to do, Robert? I cannot go and preside at their dinner, and portion it out; and I cannot say so-and-so is enough and you shall have no more, when cook declares it is not. I tell them they are not to eat meat at supper, but I may as well tell the sun not to shine, for I know they do. I would turn them off to-morrow, all the lot, if I thought I could change for the better, but I might only get worse, for they would be sure to go and give the place a bad name, out of revenge."

"Can't you change the cook?"

"I have changed her three times in the last year, and each one seems to have less notion of economy than the last. They are fair-spoken before my face and second all I say, but the extravagance is not diminished."

Captain Courtenay opened the bills, bill by bill, and laid them in a stack on the table. "Augusta," said he, in a gravely serious tone, "we must retrench, or we shall soon be in a hobble."

"I am willing," answered his wife; "but where can we begin?" "Let us consider," resumed the captain, thoughtfully; "where can it be? It cannot be in the rent and taxes, of course they must go on just the same, and the insurance, and I must pay the interest of the money we owe, and we must have our meals as usual. We must dismiss one of the servants."

"That's equally impossible," returned Mrs. Courtenay. "Which would you dismiss? Three children, two of them in arms, as one may say, require two nurses, and cannot be attended to without. Then there must be two for the house: one could not wait, and cook, and clean, and answer the door-oh, impossible."

Captain Courtenay leaned his head upon his hand: it did indeed seem as if there was not the slightest loophole in the domestic department which afforded a chance of retrenchment.

"Miss Marsh," said the housemaid, ushering in a lady.

Mrs. Courtenay looked round for her sister Emily, but it was Aunt Clem.

"Well," said she, as the captain, with whom she was a favourite, ensconced her into the warmest seat, "and how are you getting on?"

"Middling," laughed the captain. "Looking blue over the Christmas

bills."

"Ah," said Aunt Clem, as she took off her bonnet, "they are often written on blue paper. You should settle your bills weekly; it is the safest and most economical plan: if you let them run on, you pay for it through the nose."

"I wish these accounts could be paid, even through the nose,” cried the captain. "Our expenses are getting the mastery, Aunt Clem, and we cannot see where to retrench. We were talking about it now."

"Is that heap all bills? Let me look at them. You need have no secrets from an old woman like me."

The captain tossed them into her lap, and the first she looked at happened to be the one for the baby linen. Aunt Clem studied it through her spectacles, and then studied Augusta's face.

"Never saw anything so extravagant in my life. Who did you think you were buying for? One of the little princesses ?" Augusta was too nettled to reply.

"I don't see that a baby ought to cost as much as a man," put in the captain; "but Augusta tells me I know nothing about it. I could get half a dozen shirts for thirty shillings."

"Of course you could. And these ought to have cost six.”

"Now, aunt!" resentfully ejaculated Augusta. "How, pray?"

"Six shillings at the very outside. You should have bought the lawn and made them yourself."

"Babies' shirts at a shilling apiece!" said Augusta, scornfully. "These are richly trimmed with Valenciennes lace and insertion, Aunt Clem."

"Trim my old bedgown with Valenciennes!" irreverently snapped Aunt Clem. "It would be just as sensible a trick. Who sees the shirt when the baby has got it on? Nonsense, Augusta! Valenciennes lace may be very well in its proper place, but not for those who can't pay their Christmas bills."

Augusta was indignant. The captain only smiled.

"What's this last?" continued Aunt Clem. "Lace?-four pounds, less two shillings, for lace? Here, take your bill; I have seen enough of it. No wonder you find your accounts heavy, if they are all on this

scale.'

"It is not dear," fired Augusta. "Half-a-crown a yard-the other was for the christening-is cheap for babies' lace."

"I told Augusta I saw some yesterday in a shop window at twopence a yard, and it looked as well," observed the captain.

"I don't quite say that," said Aunt Clem; "twopenny lace would neither look nor wear well. But there's another sort of lace, of medium quality, used almost exclusively for infants' caps: this man, Clark, sells quantities of it"

66

Trumpery cotton trash!" interrupted Mrs. Courtenay.

"It is a very pretty lace, rich-looking and durable," went on Aunt Clem, disdaining the interruption, "and if not thread, it looks like it, but I believe it to be thread. It will last for two children, and it costs about ninepence a yard. Annis has never bought any other."

"How can you say so, aunt? I'm sure her children's caps always look

nice."

"I know they do. You don't believe in this lace, because you have not looked out for it," observed Aunt Clem. "You go to Clark'sstepping out of a cab, I dare say, at the door-and ask to look at some good nursery lace. Of course they show you the good, the real, they don't attempt to show you anything inferior. But Annis, when she was buying these things, went to Clark's-and I happened to be with her: she did not ask, off-hand, for rich lace, or real lace, she said, 'Have you a cheaper description of lace that will wear and answer the purpose?' and they showed her what I tell you of. She bought no other, and very well it has worn and looks; it lasted her first baby, and it is lasting this one. I was so pleased with her method of going to work—not in the way of caps alone, mind you, but of everything-that I sent her four yards of pillow lace from the country for a best cap for her child. At the time you were married," added Aunt Clem, looking at them both over her spectacles, "I said you would not do half as well as Lance and Annis, though you had nearly double their income. You are the wrong sort of folks."

"At any rate, I cannot be expected to understand lace," said the captain. "But you might understand other things, and give them up," returned Aunt Clem. "You might give up your West-end society, and your gaieties, and your extravagant mode of dressing—”

"I'm sure I don't dress extravagantly," interrupted the captain. "I'm sure you do," said Aunt Clem: "in that way you are worse than Augusta, and she's fine enough. It may not be extravagant in the abstract, but it is extravagant in proportion to your income. You might also give up having parties at home, and going out to them, and your wine at your club, and your theatres. Unless a man, who has only a limited income, can resign these amusements, he has no right to marry. But in saying this, I wish to cast no reflection on those who cannot: all men are not calculated by nature to economise in domestic privacy: only, let such keep single."

"I suppose you think I was not," laughed Captain Courtenay.

"I am positive you were not. Nor Augusta either. And you'll have a hard fight and tussle before you can submit to its hardships. They will be sore hardships to you; to Lance and his wife they are pleasures: yet he is just as much of a gentleman as you are, and was brought up as expensively. But you are of totally different dispositions."

"What a pity we were not differently paired, since they are the two clever ones, and we the incapables; I with Lance, and Annis with Robert!" exclaimed Augusta, sarcastically.

"Then there would be four incapables instead of two-or what would amount to the same," unceremoniously observed Aunt Clem.

"You

would have spent poor Lance out of house and home; and Annis would have led a weary and wretched life of it, for the captain's expenses out of doors would have rendered futile her economy at home. No, you have been rightly paired. You have not half the comfort with your five hundred a year, that they have upon three."

"Go on, go on, Aunt Clem," cried Augusta; "why don't you magnify them into angels? More comfort than we have! Look at our superior home, our mode of life, and compare it with theirs; their paltry two servants and their shabby living. I don't suppose they taste wine once in a month." "And not tasting it, do not feel the want of it. But when you say