verybody has come to regard as altogether right and becoming,
is that the wife whose handsome wedding portion has been absorbed by
her husband's business is as dependent upon his favor for her "keep"
as she who brought no dot. She does not even draw interest upon the
money invested. Is it to be wondered at that caustic critics of human
nature and inconsistencies catalogue marriage for the wife under the
head of mendicancy? Would it not be phenomenal if women with eyes, and
with brains behind the eyes, did not gird at the necessity of suing
humbly for really what belongs to them?

I have known two, or at most three women, who averred that they "did
not mind asking their husbands for money." Out of simple charity I
preferred to believe that they were untruthful, to discounting their
disrespect and delicacy to the extent implied by the assertion. Yet
the street beggar gets used to plying his trade, and I may have been
mistaken.

Let us not overlook another side of the question under perplexed
debate. The woman who considers herself defrauded by present
privations and what seem to her needless economies, loses sight,
sometimes, of what John keeps before him as the load-star of his
existence and endeavor; to wit, that toil and economy are for the
common weal. He is not a miser for his individual enrichment, nor does
he plan with deliberate design for the shadowy second wife. It is not
to be denied that No. 2 often lives like a queen upon the wealth which
No. 1 helped to accumulate, and killed herself in so doing. But John
does not look so far as this. Much scrimping and hoarding may engender
a baser love of money for money's self. In the outset of the task, and
usually for all time, he means that wife and children shall have the
full benefit of what he has heaped up in the confident belief that he
knows who will gather with him. Men take longer views in these matters
than women. To "draw money out of the business" is a form of speech
to a majority of wives. To him whose household expenses overrun what
he considers the bounds of reason, this "drawing" means harder work
and to less purpose for months to come; clipped wings of enterprise,
and occasionally loss of credit. He who has married a reasonably
intelligent woman cannot make her comprehend this too soon. If he can
enlist her sympathies in his plans for earning independence and
wealth, he has secured a valuable coadjutor. If he can show her that
he is investing certain