owance, then, considering your
want of economy in paying everybody just what they ask for their
things."

"Oh, no! I don't do that, exactly, Mrs. Mier. If I consider the
price of a thing too high, I don't buy it."

"You paid too high for your strawberries today."

"Perhaps I did; although I am by no means certain."

"You can judge for yourself. Mine cost but eight cents, and you own
that they are superior to yours at ten cents."

"Still, yours may have been too cheap, instead of mine too dear."

"Too cheap! That is funny! I never saw any thing too cheap in my
life. The great trouble is, that every thing is too dear. What do
you mean by too cheap?"

"The person who sold them to you may not have made profit enough
upon them to pay for her time and labor. If this were the case, she
sold them to you too cheap."

"Suppose she paid too high for them? Is the purchaser to pay for her
error?"

"Whether she did so, it would be hard to tell; and even if she had
made such a mistake, I think it would be more just and humane to pay
her a price that would give her a fair profit, instead of taking
from her the means of buying bread for her children. At least, this
is my way of reasoning."

"And a precious lot of money it must take to support such a system
of reasoning. But how much, pray, do you have a week to keep the
family? I am curious to know."

"Thirty-five dollars."

"Thirty-five dollars! You are jesting."

"Oh, no! That is exactly what I receive, and as I have said, I find
the sum ample."

"While I receive fifty dollars a week," said Mrs. Mier, "and am
forever calling on my husband to settle some bill or other for me.
And yet I never pay the exorbitant prices asked by everybody for
every thing. I am strictly economical in my family. While other
people pay their domestics a dollar and a half and two dollars a
week, I give but a dollar and a quarter each to my cook and
chambermaid, and require the chamber maid to help the washer-woman
on Mondays. Nothing is wasted in my kitchen, for I take care in
marketing, not to allow room for waste. I don't know how it is that
you save money on thirty-five dollars with your system, while I find
fifty dollars inadequate with my system."

The exact difference in the two systems will be clearly understood
by the reader, when he is informed that although Mrs. Mier never
paid any body as much as was at first asked for an article, and was
always talking about economy, and tryi