ting hundreds of things that we don't need, that have no real value
except that they soothe our self-love; and for these inferior articles
we pay a higher proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does
for his better ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere
shawls; and yet a young man just entering business will spend an
eighth of a year's income to put one on his wife, and when he has put
it there it only serves as a constant source of disquiet, for, now
that the door is opened and Cashmere shawls are possible, she is
consumed with envy at the superior ones constantly sported around her.
So, also, with point-lace, velvet dresses, and hundreds of things of
that sort, which belong to a certain rate of income, and are absurd
below it."

"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and
Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they
lasted a lifetime."

"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year: they may be
cheap for her rate of living; but for us, for example, by no magic of
numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the
greatest bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds than not
to have them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of
point-lace, never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy,
and just as much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting
to me for not having them? Nobody, that I ever heard."

"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne.

"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to
expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think
or inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first
step in certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a
very antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little,
old-fashioned house, our little old-fashioned ways."

"Except the parlor carpet, and what came of it, my dear," said I
mischievously.

"Yes, except the parlor carpet," said my wife, with a conscious
twinkle, "and the things that came of it; there was a concession
there, but one can't be wise always."

"_We_ talked mamma into that," said Jenny.

"But one thing is certain," said my wife,--"that, though I have had an
antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not
the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed,
I have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While