Harry had kept up his little jokes about their housekeeping; had laughed gently over her weekly savings, and still more when she told him it was to meet the extra expense of visitors.
“But, Harry,” she had said earnestly, “we must do that, you know, or else get just as much behind as I am now before-hand. Of course, if we were a large family keeping a bountiful house, one more or less would not need providing for; but when just two are living as well as they know how, on a certain sum, that amount will not stretch to take in extra. Every one who manages has to calculate so; only perhaps I need not have spoken of it. Many things are all right until they are spoken, and then they do, I confess, sound very small. Of course, if we cooked a large roast to-day, ate it cold two or three days, baked once a week several loaves, and had large pots of weak coffee, half to be thrown away, we should not need to provide very much for a visitor; but we aim to live differently; and it is only by making one thing fit in with another that we can live quite within our means, and be able to welcome a visitor without anxiety.”
Molly was flushed, and her eyes sparkled; for she was a little wounded.
“My dearest little woman, you mistook me; I wasn’t laughing at the planning at all; I was laughing in admiration at the way you steered your little bark so very near the wind, and trimmed so very neatly. And to think, too, how clever you were to cut down the table-expenses after the first week without my guessing it. I declare, I thought I was living quite like a prince. I am lost in admiration, Molly, and feel ashamed to be so much better off than most fellows.”
He spoke in a sort of jesting earnest, and pressed Molly to him. She understood him well; the slight cloud lifted, and, with his arm about her, they went over the month’s accounts together.
“Now do you regret the experiment of housekeeping?” she asked, when he had congratulated her.
“No, indeed, I don’t. No more boarding for me if I know it.”
“I am so thankful to hear you say that.”
“Now, my dear, you’ve had your little innings, listen to mine. I have $20 a month, remember, to give an account of. You know we set out, when we married, with the brave purpose of reserving $10 a month for emergencies. But with board and laundress coming to nearly $90, and the numberless trifling expenses, car fares, etc., in New York, in the whole twelve months we did not save $10.”
“I know, and it worried me very much; to live right up to one’s income seems terrible.”