Mr. Stanley," said Mr. Carlton. "In general I
look upon the contempt or the fulfillment of these duties as pretty
certain indications of the turn of mind from which the one or the other
proceeds. I allow, however, that _with_ this knowledge a lady may
unhappily have overlooked more important acquisitions; but _without_ it
I must ever consider the female character as defective in the texture,
however it may be embroidered and spangled on the surface."

Sir John Belfield declared, that though he had not that natural
antipathy to a wit, which some men have; yet unless the wildness of a
wit was tamed like the wildness of other animals, by domestic habits, he
himself would not choose to venture on one. He added, that he should
pay a bad compliment to Lady Belfield, who had so much higher claims to
his esteem, if he were to allege that these habits were the determining
cause of his choice, yet had he seen no such tendencies in her
character, he should have suspected her power of making him as happy as
she had done.

"I confess with shame," said Mr. Carlton, "that one of the first things
that touched me with any sense of my wife's merit, was the admirable
good sense she discovered in the direction of my family. Even at the
time that I had most reason to blush at my own conduct, she never gave
me cause to blush for hers. The praises constantly bestowed on her
elegant, yet prudent, arrangement, by my friends, flattered my vanity,
and raised her in my opinion, though they did not lead me to do her full
justice."

The two ladies who were thus agreeably flattered, looked modestly
grateful. Mr. Stanley said, "I was going to endeavor at removing Miss
Sparke's prejudices, by observing how much this domestic turn brings the
understanding into action. The operation of good sense is requisite in
making the necessary calculations for a great family, in a hundred ways.
Good sense is required to teach that a perpetually recurring small
expense is more to be avoided than an incidental great one, while it
shows that petty savings can not retrieve an injured estate. The story
told by Johnson, of a lady, who, while ruining her fortune by excessive
splendor and expense, yet refused to let a two shilling mango be cut at
her table, exemplifies exactly my idea. Shabby curtailments, without
repairing the breach which prodigality has made, discredit the husband,
and bring the reproach of meanness on the wife. Retrenchments, to be
efficient, must b