ngs should be cared for, altered, or mended. If
their cap is a little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife,
or slit holes in a new shirt-collar because it does not exactly fit to
their mind. For my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful
as women. A pretty thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the
country laid to us!"

"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared with
men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,--the authors and
conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves
and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man."

"I don't see into that," said Bob Stevens.

"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a
particular purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is
taken from. Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her
dress, and gives fifty dollars for a bonnet, she gives a third of her
income,--it is a horrible extravagance; while for the woman whose
income is ten thousand it may be no extravagance at all. The poor
clergyman's wife, when she gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be
giving as much in proportion to her income as the woman who gives
fifty. Now the difficulty with the greater part of women is, that the
men, who make the money and hold it, give them no kind of standard by
which to measure their expenses. Most women and girls are in this
matter entirely at sea, without chart or compass. They don't know in
the least what they have to spend. Husbands and fathers often pride
themselves about not saying a word on business matters to their wives
and daughters. They don't wish them to understand them, or to inquire
into them, or to make remarks or suggestions concerning them. 'I want
you to have everything that is suitable and proper,' says Jones to his
wife, 'but don't be extravagant.'

"'But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends
very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for
dress and housekeeping, I could tell better.'

"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,--it's too much trouble. Get what
you need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that's all I ask.'

"By and by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones
has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm.

"'I shall just be ruined, madam, if that's the way you are going on. I
can't afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set up:
look