"Now, Emerson, don't you go to doing any such thing as that!" said John, impressively. "Pay the money while it is in your hand, and then the place will be, as you say, your own. You will never find a time when it will come any easier."
"But, I tell you, that and the furniture and this wretched party together will take the whole of Aunt Eunice's legacy. We sha'n't have more than a hundred dollars left for ourselves."
"You will have the house left for yourself, won't you?" said John, a little impatiently. "You cannot eat and have your cake, fix it as you will. Take my advice. Pay Carr in the first place; then pay for your furniture, if you have not done so already; and let Grayson have the rest, as a payment on the house. That will leave you comparatively free; and, with economy, you will easily make up the rest."
"I hate economy," said Joe, sullenly;—"always scrimping here and pinching there; you cannot afford this, and you cannot afford that: there is no comfort in it."
"I confess I do not love economy for its own sake," said John, smiling. "I like to spend money as well as you,—though perhaps in a different way; but any thing is better than being in debt."
"And even if I wanted to be economical, it would be of no use," said Joe. "Agnes does not know how to save: I believe it is not in her. She wastes more provisions in a week than your wife does in a year; and, after all, we have never any thing fit to eat. Her only notion of economy is locking up the sugar-bowl. I should think her mother might have taught her something about housekeeping."
"Now, Emerson, I won't listen to any such talk as that," said John, in good humour, but decidedly. "All these expenses were as much your doing as hers; and, if I may speak plainly—"
"Go ahead."
"I think it is a downright sin for a man to talk of his wife's faults to other people. You promised in your marriage to love and honour her; and the Bible expressly commands a man to give honour to his wife. Now, it is not honouring her to expose her weakness to other people. You took her 'for better, for worse;' and you must just take the worse with the better. It would be an excellent thing both for you and Agnes if, instead of each fixing your thoughts on what the other ought to do, you would learn to think more of what you ought to do yourselves. You know we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. If you are wiser than Agnes,—and I don't deny it,—you ought to let that make you more forbearing and gentle, and not more exacting, towards her."
Joe took this lecture in good part. He really loved his wife, though he was often unreasonable with regard to her; and he was not ill pleased to have forbearance and gentleness urged on the ground that he was the stronger of the two. He sat silent a while, and then went back to the papers.