ey 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, as 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 Jennie.

"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 I had
young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore
Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a
really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and
relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so
much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the
country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and
carriage for daily driving,--by which means we afforded, as a family,
very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house,
and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other
people think they must have, we put in a profusion of
bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having. There
never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was
necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew
on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and
dressing."