their regular increase of little expenses, little cares, and little children each is natural in well regulated families. These families were intimate; the husbands were friends; and the wives, while differing in one important element of character, were amiable in disposition, and warm of heart. They not only exchanged "calls," but were on terms of close and cordial intimacy. They dealt at the same stores, visited the same circles, and attended the same church. They were unlike each other in this: Mrs. Foxglove kept bills at every place she patronized with her custom; Mrs. Harebell had never learned to say, "Charge this to me," or what is the same, only worse, "Charge this to my husband."

"Mother," said the little daughter of Mrs. Harebell, one day, just after the parties had met in a store," Mother, does that store belong to Mrs. Foxglove?"

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No, my dear: why do you ask?"

"Well, did the gentleman give her the things she carried away ?"

"Certainly not, my daughter: she bought them."

"Well, but, mother, she didn't pay him any money, and yet she took the goods from the store: ain't that stealing?"

"Mrs. Foxglove, my dear, keeps a bill at the store, and gets things on credit," said the mother.

"I don't know any thing about that; but it seems to me just like stealing," said the child; and she seemed utterly

bewildered between what she had seen, and what her mother said.

There is a reality in this dialogue. It occurred under the circumstances related, and it presents the two mothers in strong points of contrast with each other. There is another feature in the case, that presents one of the parties in a yet more attractive light. One of the articles thus purchased was intended as a present for the little girl; and when offered was received with hesitancy and distrust; and was never worn with any feelings of pleasure. She seemed always to feel that it was not rightfully hers. Two general reasons may be given for this sensitiveness on the part of a mere child. She had never seen her mother take goods from the store without first paying for them; and besides this, her mother had taught her never to touch any thing that was not really hers. She never took a cake, nor a lump of sugar, however much they were exposed, unless she first obtained permission to do so; and if she found a lump of sugar on the floor, she would carry it to her mother and ask if she might have it, and if refused, she would take it back to the place where she found it, and leave it there.

Mrs. Harebell, the mother of the little girl with whose sense of honesty the reader has been made acquainted, was the daughter of a gentleman, who, from a small beginning, had, after years of honest toil, accumulated a handsome property. His business transactions had made him

but too familiar with the dangers, and, in many cases, with the downright dishonesty of the credit system. And although he never refused to credit his customers, and especially the industrious poor, yet he made it a rule of life never to ask it. This principle of sterling integritypay as you go-the philosopher's stone, as John Randolph called it, he took great pains to impress on the minds of his children. He was accustomed to say to them, "I have no wish to prevent your buying whatever you need; but you must always take the money with you to pay for it never let me see a bill. If you can't pay, don't buy." These are sound rules. They took root in the heart at least of one of his children, and bore fruit that her husband thought more precious than her marriage portion, or her inheritance, when her honored father was gathered to "the recompense of the just."

Mrs. Foxglove was reared under a very different family regimen. Her father was reputed rich, was always busy, kept his capital in active employment, and never kept money enough about him for the constantly recurring wants of his household. He was annoyed at the repeated calls for money, and preferred paying once for all at the expiration of the year. He thus encouraged the credit system; bills were made in every direction, for every personal and domestic want; and when the year was gone, and the bills began to flow into his office, he could "scarcely believe eyes "when he saw their number, nor his ears when

his

told of the aggregate amount. Every thing, from a shoe string to a silk dress, and from an ounce of nutmegs to a bag of coffee, and from a mess of greens to a sirloin of veal, was there, and was examined, and taken home and talked over; and his wife had n't an idea that

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the bills could be

Then the traders

so large, or that living was so expensive. were complained of, and their honesty suspected, and the family was scolded, and lectures on retrenchment were delivered, and promises of greater economy made, and after a great deal of vaporing and resolving the bills were paid; and the whole family voted bills and January the greatest of all bores. For awhile, a new leaf was turned over," every thing was done on "the cash principle;" but the demands were so numerous on the one part, and the reluctance to give the money so manifest and increasing on the other, that with common consent it was dropped, and mother and children resorted to the old system of ways and means. It is not surprising that, with such training, Mrs. Foxglove, when she transferred herself and her allegiance to the heart and home of another, should also carry with her her habit of having things charged. She found some difficulty at first in saying to "my husband," and once or twice, without thinking of the change in her dependence, said, "to my father," and only discovered her mistake when the smiling clerk asked his name. Mr. Foxglove had a strong dislike for bills, and strove to correct it it was so much easier to pay as you go, or if you cannot

do that, to go without. But his wife had never learned to

But we

go without, and it was too late to begin now. must do her the justice to say, she got all the money she could from her husband, and supplied the differences between it and her wants, by making bills. This was the source of much unhappiness, and many dissensions between them, and she was always dejected and nervous as pay day approached.

CHAPTER III.

THE MAZARINE BLUE MERINO DRESS: OR A HUSBAND'S FRIGHT.

"WHAT are you studying so closely, and with so sad countenance?" said Mr. Harebell, one pleasant afternoon in January, as he entered, unannounced, into the wellfurnished and comfortable parlor of Mr. Foxglove.

"A bill of dry goods against my wife; and not a very small one, either,” was the reply: and there was a tone in his voice that blanched the cheek of his wife, and stirred a tear in her eye.

"That's something I've never enjoyed the sight of," said Mr. Harebell, in a quiet and cheerful voice.

"What!" said his friend's wife;

never saw a dry goods bill; and you a business man ; and your wife wearing as many dry goods as any lady of my acquaintance!"