he annoyance was simply in the process of asking; and this
became so great, that I often underwent serious inconvenience rather than
do it. Finally, at the year's end, I surprised my relative very much by
saying that I would accept, if necessary, a lower salary, on condition that
it should be paid on regular days, and as a matter of business. The wish
was at once granted, without the reduction; and he probably never knew what
a relief it was to me.

Now, if a young man is liable to feel this pride and reluctance toward an
employer, even when a kinsman, it is easy to understand how many women may
feel the same, even in regard to a husband. And I fancy that those who feel
it most are often the most conscientious and high-minded women. It is
unreasonable to say of such persons, "Too sensitive! Too fastidious!" For
it is just this quality of finer sensitiveness which men affect to prize in
a woman, and wish to protect at all hazards. The very fact that a husband
is generous; the very fact that his income is limited,--these may bring in
conscience and gratitude to increase the restraining influence of pride,
and make the wife less willing to ask money of such a husband than if he
were a rich man or a mean one. The only dignified position in which a man
can place his wife is to treat her at least as well as he would treat a
housekeeper, and give her the comfort of a perfectly clear and definite
arrangement as to money matters. She will not then be under the necessity
of nerving herself to solicit from him as a favor what she really needs and
has a right to spend. Nor will she be torturing herself, on the other side,
with the secret fear lest she has asked too much and more than
they can really spare. She will, in short, be in the position of a woman
and a wife, not of a child or a toy.

I have carefully avoided using the word "allowance" in what has been said,
because that word seems to imply the untrue and mean assumption that the
money is all the husband's to give or withhold as he will. Yet I have heard
this sort of phrase from men who were living on a wife's property or a
wife's earnings; from men who nominally kept boarding-houses, working a
little, while their wives worked hard,--or from farmers, who worked hard,
and made their wives work harder. Even in cases where the wife has no
direct part in the money-making, the indirect part she performs, if she
takes faithful charge of her household, is so essential, so beyond al