uld thrive must ask his wife," he quotes, and congratulates
himself that he has a wife as much disposed to frugality as himself.
She helped in the business; they kept no idle servants; their table was
plain and simple, their furniture of the cheapest. His breakfast for a
long time was bread and milk, and he ate it out of a twopenny earthen
porringer with a pewter spoon. "But mark," he adds, "how luxuries will
enter families and make a progress despite of principles: being called
one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of
silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife,
and had cost her the enormous sum of twenty-three shillings, for which
she had no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought _her_
husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his
neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our
house, which afterward, in a course of years as our wealth increased,
augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value."

Mrs. Franklin's temper was not of the serenest, and her manners perhaps
were not such as would have honored him had she followed him into the
great world; but she made him a good wife,--and we need not repeat the
tattle which we are told is still current among some of the high
families of Philadelphia. They had two children,--a son, the idol of
his father's heart, who died as a child; and a daughter, who married
Richard Bache, and is the ancestress of a large family.

In this happy home, and as his business prospered, Franklin found more
and more time for study and self-improvement. In 1733 he began the
acquisition of languages, teaching himself to read French fluently, and
then passing on to Italian and Spanish. Chess was always a favorite
amusement with him; and we can imagine the grave philosopher playing a
cautious and invulnerable game, with now and then, when least expected,
a brilliant sally. But his conscience seems always to have protested
against the waste of time involved, and he now made use of the game to
forward his studies. With his favorite antagonist he agreed that the
victor in each game should impose some task in Italian, which the other
on his honor was to complete before the next meeting. As his opponent
was a pretty even match for him they both made steady progress in the
language. In Latin he had had a year's instruction at school, and later
in life he dabbled a little in that language; bu