"But I thought I was going to p-please you, and you called me a h-hotel, and said you a-abominated it!" she wailed, stumbling away blindly.
With a despairing ejaculation Burke flung the bills to the floor, and caught the sob-shaken little figure of his wife in his arms.
"There, there, I was a brute, and I didn't mean it—not a word of it. Sweetheart, don't, please don't," he begged. "Why, girlie, all the bills in Christendom aren't worth a tear from your dear eyes. Come, won't you stop?"
But Helen did not stop, at once. The storm was short, but tempestuous. At the end of ten minutes, however, together they went into the dining-room. Helen carried the potato salad (which Burke declared he was really hungry for to-day), and Burke carried the bills crumpled in one hand behind his back, his other arm around his wife's waist.
That evening a remorseful, wistful-eyed wife and a husband with an "I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air went over the subject of household finances, and came to an understanding.
There were to be no more charge accounts. For the weekly expenses Helen was to have every cent that could possibly be spared; but what she could not pay cash for, they must go without, if they starved. In a pretty little book she must put down on one side the money received. On the other, the money spent. She was a dear, good little wife, and he loved her 'most to death; but he couldn't let her run up bills when he had not a red cent to pay them with. He would borrow, of course, for these—he was not going to have any dirty little tradesmen pestering him with bills all the time! But this must be the last. Never again!
And Helen said yes, yes, indeed. And she was very sure she would love to keep the pretty little book, and put down all the money she got, and all she spent.
All this was very well in theory. But in practice—
At the end of the first week Helen brought her book to her husband, and spread it open before him with great gusto.
On the one side were several entries of small sums, amounting to eight dollars received. On the other side were the words: "Spent all but seventeen cents."