Again, when times are bad, when the bread-winner falls ill, and the treasury runs dry, there is no more pathetic and lovely sight than the brave little wife who struggles and succeeds in keeping the wolf out of the house.
But in instances where no serious demand of this kind need be made upon a wife's ingenuity, she is a very short-sighted woman indeed who does not see the dangers and realize the evils of overzealous economy.
There would be fewer complaints of marriages that result in the wife being merely an unpaid servant or housekeeper, who cannot give notice to leave, if brides began as they meant to go on, for no one save those who have lived through the process knows how difficult it is to introduce a new régime when once its opposite had been inaugurated and accepted.
'You said you would find £3 10s. a week ample a month ago. Why in the world do you want £5 now?' asks the husband, whose wife has been foolishly anxious to impress him with her cleverness as an economist, and finds she cannot keep up the farce beyond the limit of a few weeks.
Economy may be carried too far from choice. There are women who simply love saving. They neglect their intellectual life, and abandon all attempts to keep in the movement, all in order to grind down the weekly bills. No reward awaits them.
The women who believe themselves perfect because they are economical, and consider the spring-cleaning of their house the greatest event of the year, grow old before their time, and are never the companions modern wives should be to their husbands.
Be good, but never overdo it, I will say to any woman who has the sense of humour.