school-teaching Alice had learned
many things, and having been an orphan from an early age, she had made
the problems of real life one of her chief studies; and what she had
learned in this latter department served her well in her new station.
After marriage she found Albert to be just the man she had known him
to be in other years. He was kind to a fault; free-hearted and
generous; ready always to answer the call of friendship; and prone to
pluck the flowers that bloom to-day, regardless of what may be
nurtured to bloom to-morrow.

They had been married but a few months when Alice found he was cutting
his garments according to his daily supply of cloth. Not a shred was
he likely to save up from the cuttings for an extra garment for a
rainy day to come.

"Albert," she said to him one evening, "do you know we ought to be
laying up a little something?"

Albert looked up from his paper and waited for his wife to explain.

"I think I heard you tell Mr. Greenough that you had no money--that
you had paid out your last dollar this very afternoon?"

"Exactly, my dear; but you know to-morrow is pay-day."

"And you have spent your last month's earnings?"

"Yes."

A brief silence ensued, which Albert broke.

"Come, Alice, you've got something on your mind. Out with it--I'll
listen."

And then Alice, in a smiling, pleasant way, went on to tell her
husband that they ought to be laying up something.

Albert smiled in turn, and asked how such a thing could be done when
it cost all he earned to live.

"You earn three dollars and a half a day," said Alice.

"Yes."

"George Summers earns only three dollars a day."

"You are right."

"And yet he lives and does not run in debt."

"But he is forced to deny himself many little comforts which we
enjoy."

"And the one great comfort which we might enjoy we are throwing away."

"How is that, Alice."

"The comfort of a little sum in the bank, which we should see growing
toward the answering of future wants."

Albert could not see how it was to be done; and Alice feared that a
lesson of empty words might be wasted. She knew that his ambition
needed a substantial prop. Never, of his own accord, would he commence
to save by littles. He did not estimate money in that way. Had some
kind fairy dropped into his hand a five-twenty bond for five hundred
dollars, he would have put it away gladly; and with such a nest-egg in
the start, he might have sought to add to the store.