“Tom, dear,” said has wife one morning at breakfast, about the close of the first year of their marriage, “What do you mean to do about this house? I find that the rents on all this row have risen fifty dollars. I suppose our landlord will raise on us.”

“Yes,” replied her husband, knitting his brow with an anxious expression, “he told me so yesterday.”

“The rent is already high enough,” rejoined his wife, “for a house of this size, with none of the new improvements, too. Had we not better give it up?”

Coolidge looked annoyed, and said, “The moving would make up the difference of the rent.”

“Yes, but then we might get a better house for the same money up town; and by taking a lease?—”

“You can’t take a house on lease,” answered her husband quickly, “these landlords have one so in their power.”

“But they will lease I know,” pursued Lucy, “for Mrs. Saville told me yesterday that they had taken their house for three years. The one next door is to rent on the same terms, with baths on every story, and some new contrivance by which all the coal is taken up stairs by turning some crank, or something or other,” continued Mrs. Coolidge with all the enthusiasm of a young housekeeper.

“Well, well,” interrupted Tom with some impatience, “we could not take it if the whole work of the house was performed by machinery instead of servants; for, to tell you the truth, Lucy,” he added gravely, “I am behind hand in the rent.”

“Behind hand in the rent!” exclaimed Lucy aghast.

“Yes, but you need not look so horror struck, Lucy, it’s only the last quarter. I should not like to leave, however, without having paid up every thing; so we must stay where we are for this year. Cranstoun is anxious we should, and so don’t trouble me about what is due; and upon the whole it is more convenient to pay fifty dollars more in the course of the year, than to move now.”

Lucy looked very serious, and then said,

“I am perfectly willing to stay here, Tom, but I really think we pay Cranstoun enough now; it’s unconscionable to ask more. Did you tell him about the new houses, and remind him that this has no baths?”

“No, my dear,” replied Tom, “you can’t expostulate with a man you owe. Next year we can do better, but for the present we must put up with it as it is.”

“But to pay fifty dollars,” pursued Lucy, in a dissatisfied tone, for she was thinking of fifty things on which she would prefer laying out fifty dollars.

“I must do the best I can, Lucy,” replied her husband. “And now, I am sorry to say it, Lucy, but we must retrench in something—we don’t make the two ends meet this year.”

“Don’t we?” said Lucy sadly, “that’s very bad.”

“Yes, so it is. But don’t look so doleful about it, Lucy, for Heaven’s sake,” said her husband; “it is not so bad after all—for though we are behind hand, it is not a great deal. We have only to cut off something else next year, and then all will come right again.”

“Well,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, “where shall we begin. We can’t do very well with a servant less. The cook, of course, we must have. The chambermaid does the washing. The man—we can get a waiter-girl instead of a man, if you are willing.”

Coolidge hesitated, and said,

“That is only exchanging one servant for another; and I hate girl waiters. I never can order a woman; and then I must hire some one to clean my boots—and there’s the putting in coal. The difference of wages soon makes itself up, you see, in these trifles that you want all the time. These sort of economies only make one uncomfortable, and save in the end little or nothing.”

“That’s true,” she replied mournfully.

“We can give up the curtains for the back parlour,” rejoined he.

“But they are ordered,” replied Lucy.

“I know that,” he continued, “but I dare say Lambert would take them off our hands.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Lucy; “but then he will make you pay something if he does. They are cut for our windows—and you always lose upon any thing they take back after it is cut.”

“I presume so; but that is not much.”

“Yes it is, considerable,” said Lucy, who, woman-like, clung to her curtains. “And it does seem a pity to pay for what one has not; particularly, too, when money is not over plenty.”

“True enough,” said Tom. “Well, we’ll see about it. I’ll see what Lambert says about it. If he is in no hurry to be paid, why, in the course of six months, I can settle it all.”

“Of course,” said Lucy, “he gives six months’ credit—that is what they all do. No one expects to be paid before six months.”

“Oh, if that’s so,” answered Tom, “the thing may as well rest as it is.”

“If that room were not so cold,” pursued Lucy, “I should not care so much about the curtains; but we really suffered for the want of them last winter.”

“At any rate, they are ordered,” said her husband, “and as you think Lambert wont take them off our hands without making me pay something down—so there let it rest. I don’t feel inclined to pay for what we don’t have, which is, as you say, provoking enough. In fact, I find it pretty tough to pay for what we do have, let alone what we don’t.”

In truth, Coolidge found it more convenient to have some hundreds charged, than to pay a bonus down, small though it might be. So Lucy secured her curtains.

“But we must economize in something, you say,” continued Lucy. “I wish I knew where to begin,” she added, anxiously. “I don’t know what we can cut off.”

“We have not many superfluities, certainly,” rejoined her husband. “However, we must retrench as much as we can. I don’t know exactly in what—but as a general thing, Lucy. You must have an eye to saving all you can this winter; and next year I hope it wont be necessary. So good morning, love—it is time I was off.” And Tom took his hat and left his wife, who sat ruminating with a very doleful face, just where he left her, until the cook came for her orders for dinner.

The Coolidges kept a good table, usually—for Tom was fond of bringing in a friend or two occasionally to dinner; but, full of her new economies, Lucy, instead of ordering as usual, asked the cook “if there was not cold lamb enough left of yesterday to make a stew;” and that, with some mashed potatoes, was all she ordered.

“And wont I cook the pheasants that have just come in?” inquired the woman.

“No,” replied Lucy, who felt too poor to eat pheasants, “put them in the larder—it is so cold they will keep.”

“Will I fricassee or roast the chickens?” pursued the cook; “there are two pair in the larder.”

“No, the stew will be enough,” answered Mrs. Coolidge, and the cook left the room with a toss, wondering “what was in the wind now,” quite puzzled by her mistress’ sad manner of ordering dinner, and sudden notion “of having nothing worth the cooking.” “I guess Mr. Coolidge wont like stew,” thought the offended chef de cuisine, as she set to work chopping meat and vegetables.

She was right this time, at any rate—for Coolidge came home to dinner, bringing a friend with him.

As he took his seat at table, his consternation could not be concealed at the sight of the stew alone.

“Why Lucy, what’s the meaning of this?” said he, looking at his wife. “Did not the man bring home the marketing? I’ll speak to him to-morrow. It’s too bad.”

Lucy colored very much, and said,

“Yes, he came at the usual hour.”

“Well,” he said, looking as if he expected her to say something more.

She colored still more painfully as she said,

“I did not think you would be home to dinner—and?—”

“Oh, I understand,” said her husband laughing, though embarrassed, “you did not happen to feel hungry when the cook came for orders, and so thought you did not want any dinner, and that I should stay down town. Well, Hastings,” turning to his friend, “as Mrs. Coolidge wont give us any thing to eat, I’ll see we have something fit to drink. Here Joe,” turning to the man, “take this key and go into the wine cellar, and bring me one of those bottles with a card label—and see that you don’t shake it coming up stairs. There,” he said, “Hastings, try that.”

“It’s exquisite,” returned his friend, “wine for an emperor.”

And so, what with the wine and the stew, Mr. Hastings seemed to make a very good dinner, though Lucy felt as if she would be glad to get under the table, and Tom did not feel much better.

“Now, Lucy, dearest,” said he, as the door closed upon their guest, “what did you mean by ordering such a dinner?”

Tears started in her eyes as she said,

“Oh, Tom, I did not know you meant to bring home any one with you; and as we were talking of economizing this morning, and as there was plenty of cold lamb left of yesterday?—”

“I never was so mortified in my life,” rejoined her husband. “There’s no use, Lucy, in going to extremes. We may economize without going to such pitiful lengths as that. However, there’s no use in talking about it now. It’s over, and I gave Hastings wine that more than compensated for your dinner. It was some of my father’s best old Madeira. I’ve only a couple of dozen of it, but I felt I must give the poor devil something to make it up, or he would feel as if I had insulted him in bringing him home to a stew and potatoes! So, Lucy, even on the score of economy, your dinner did not answer its end. There’s no use in saving a pair of chickens, if one must give a bottle of five dollar wine to make up for their absence. This, I think,” he added laughing, “is what Emily would call one of your ‘economical failures.’”

Coolidge was certainly as good-tempered a man as ever lived; but a bad dinner, when one has a friend, will try the best of husbands—and he was vexed, in spite of himself. However, he said no more; and Lucy resolved she never would put him to the test again, in that way at least.

“Feast or famine! hey Lucy?” he said the next day, as he took his place at table. “Roast chickens, stewed chickens, pheasants! Any removes,” he continued, laughing as he looked at his wife.

“I did not mean to have all this cooked to day,” said Lucy, apologizingly, “but a thaw has come on, and cook said the poultry would not keep any longer, as it had already been two days in the larder.”

“Oh, I understand,” replied her husband, “we must eat yesterday’s dinner and today’s too. That’s it, is it? I wish Hastings dined with us to-day instead of yesterday, and then I might have kept my old wine that I grudge him.”

“Ah Tom,” said Lucy beseechingly.

He laughed, and said,

“Why, Lucy, we need not economise in the matter of mirth, need we?”

“Yes, when it is at my expense, Tom,” she replied.

“Then you think me extravagant in that respect,” he said. “Well, no matter, Lucy; if you are a young housekeeper, you are the dearest, sweetest-tempered little wife a man ever had. Only, love, when you order dinner, particularly a stew, just think of Mr. Hastings, will you? Let us economise in any thing but hospitality. There, now, I’ll say no more about it, I promise. Moreover, I wont tell Emily—now am I not good?”

——