be expected to know
anything of that? I knew that in our little family the utmost economy
was practised. I have turned or fixed up the same bonnet as many as four
times, putting on new trimmings at very little expense, and making it
look so different every time that none suspected it of being the old
bonnet altered, while many of my acquaintances admired it as a new one,
some of them even inquiring what it cost, and who was the milliner that
made it. We never thought of giving one away until it had gone through
many such transformations, nor, in fact, until it was actually used up,
at least for me. Even when mine had seen such long and severe service,
my sister Jane fell heir to it, though without knowing it,--for she had
more pride than myself, and was much more particular about her good
looks. Hence, when the thing was at all feasible, my veteran bonnet was
transformed, in private, into a very fair new one for her. She had been
familiar with my head-gear for so many years that I often wondered how
she failed to detect the disguises I put upon it; and I had as much as I
could do to keep from laughing, when I brought to her what we invariably
called her new bonnet. As she grew older, she became more exacting in
her tastes, and at the same time foolishly suspicious of the mysterious
origin of her new bonnets,--just as if they were any worse for my having
worn them for years! I presume her mortification will be extreme, when
she comes to read this. As to old clothes, they were nursed up quite as
carefully, though Jane had her full inheritance of both mine and
mother's. When entirely past service, they were cut up into carpet-rags,
from which we obtained the warmest covering for our floors. Thus
practising no wastefulness ourselves, it was difficult to understand how
the national wastefulness could be great enough to insure the prosperity
of a multitude of extensive manufacturing establishments. But our
premises were very humble ones from which to start an argument of any
description.

Yet, when the attention of an inquiring mind is directed toward any
given subject, it is astonishing how, if only a little observation is
practised, it will unfold and expand itself. In my walks to and from the
factory there lay numerous open lots or commons, all of which afforded
abundant evidence of the extent to which this public wastefulness was
carried. Heretofore I had passed on without noticing much about them.
But now I observed that