re bound to
look after it."

"What! with six of our own, Mariar?"

"Yes, Sam. Isn't there a song which says something about luck in odd
numbers?"

"And with only 500 pounds a year?" objected Mr Twitter.

"_Only_ five hundred. How can you speak so? We are _rich_ with five
hundred. Can we not educate our little ones?"

"Yes, my dear."

"And entertain our friends?"

"Yes, my love,--with crumpets and tea."

"Don't forget muffins and bloater paste, and German sausage and
occasional legs of mutton, you ungrateful man!"

"I don't forget 'em, Mariar. My recollection of 'em is powerful; I may
even say vivid."

"Well," continued the lady, "haven't you been able to lend small sums on
several occasions to friends--"

"Yes, my dear,--and they are _still_ loans," murmured the husband.

"And don't we give a little--I sometimes think too little--regularly to
the poor, and to the church, and haven't we got a nest-egg laid by in
the Post-office savings-bank?"

"All true, Mariar, and all _your_ doing. But for your thrifty ways, and
economical tendencies, and rare financial abilities, I should have been
bankrupt long ere now."

Mr Twitter was nothing more than just in this statement of his wife's
character. She was one of those happily constituted women who make the
best and the most of everything, and who, while by no means turning her
eyes away from the dark sides of things, nevertheless gave people the
impression that she saw only their bright sides. Her economy would have
degenerated into nearness if it had not been commensurate with her
liberality, for while, on the one hand, she was ever anxious, almost
eager, to give to the needy and suffering every penny that she could
spare, she was, on the other hand, strictly economical in trifles.
Indeed Mrs Twitter's vocabulary did not contain the word trifle. One
of her favourite texts of Scripture, which was always in her mind, and
which she had illuminated in gold and hung on her bedroom walls with
many other words of God, was, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be
lost." Acting on this principle with all her heart, she gathered up the
fragments of time, so that she had always a good deal of that commodity
to spare, and was never in a hurry. She gathered up bits of twine and
made neat little rings of them, which she deposited in a basket--a
pretty large basket--which in time became such a repository of wealth in
that respect that the six Twitters never fail