r getting a hundred cents' worth
for every dollar they spend. How to make a house look pretty and
attractive with small outlay; how to make a dress or turn out a bonnet
with a few knick-knacks; how to make a savory dish out of a small
remnant of beef, mutton, and veal; all that is a science not to be
despised when a husband, in receipt of a four or five hundred dollar
salary, wants to make a good dinner, and see his wife look pretty. No
doubt the aristocratic inhabitants of Mayfair and Belgravia in London,
and the plutocracy of New York, may think all this very small, and these
French people very uninteresting. They can, perhaps, hardly imagine that
such people may live on such incomes and look decent. But they do live,
and live very happy lives, too. And I will go so far as to say that
happiness, real happiness, is chiefly found among people of limited
income. The husband, who perhaps for a whole year has put quietly by a
dollar every week, so as to be able to give his dear wife a nice present
at Christmas, gives her a far more valuable, a far better appreciated
present, than the millionaire who orders Tiffany to send a diamond
_riviere_ to his wife. That quiet young French couple, whom you see at
the upper circle of a theater, and who have saved the money to enable
them to come and hear such and such a play, are happier than the
occupants of the boxes on the first tier. If you doubt it, take your
opera glasses, and "look on this picture, and on this."

[Illustration: THE UPPER CIRCLE.]

In observing nations, I have always taken more interest in the
"million," who differ in every country, than in the "upper ten," who are
alike all over the world. People who have plenty of money at their
disposal generally discover the same way of spending it, and adopt the
same mode of living. People who have only a small income show their
native instincts in the intelligent use of it. All these differ, and
these only are worth studying, unless you belong to the staff of a
"society" paper. (As a Frenchman, I am glad to say we have no "society"
papers. England and America are the only two countries in the world
where these official organs of Anglo-Saxon snobbery can be found, and I
should not be surprised to hear that Australia possessed some of these
already.)

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE SAD-EYED OCCUPANTS OF THE BOX.]

The source of French happiness is to be found in the thrift of the
women, fro