first exclamation; but I believe she slightly interpreted his looks; for she had, even then, been opening to me the apprehension of some such scene as followed, and with which she had, as she said, been haunted day and night, for weeks past.

;

Charles drew from his pocket two tradesmen's bills, and laid them on the table without speaking. I had just heard the history of those bills, and I felt sorely for my friend, while, for the first time, I perceived how erroneous had been the tendency of my former sympathy and advice. The silly and misguided woman had determined that if she could not indulge her luxurious propensities in one way, she would in another and since it was so difficult a matter to extract money from her husband's pocket, she opened accounts with the tradesmen around, hoping to discharge the debts as secretly as she contracted them. This had gone on for more than a year, and Mrs. Wilson had been able to give nothing but promises in exchange for goods, until the patience of some of the creditors was exhausted, and their suspicion aroused. The bills, too, when all the sums were put together, amounted to so large a result that poor Mrs. Wilson was seriously alarmed. She wrote to her friends, but, whatever her expectations might be from them, they had nothing to lend to needy borrowers; and now she dreaded to tell her husband what she bad done. This was her pathetic narration, which the entrance of her husband had all but interrupted. The bills which he silently, but emphatically and significantly, laid upon the table fully explained the cause of his agitation.

"Oh, Charles, Charles!' she exclaimed, as she laid hold of his trembling hand with one which trembled yet more: 'I have been very wrong-forgive me!'

He did not return the convulsive grasp: but coldly drawing away his hand, he laid it on the papers: 'Are there any more of these things ?' he asked. 'No-yes-no-only-only-.' But I need not, and will not describe the scene that followed. have to do is with results.

All I

By the interest of our mutual and good friend, Charles Wilson borrowed money enough to pay these secret bills; and the poor mortified young wife promised faithfully and submissively to avoid future extravagance and illicit dealing, while, to be enabled to repay the borrowed money, the young couple prepared themselves to retrench their ordinary expenses. The first fruit of this was in a change of residence, which deprived me of my lodgers, and, in some degree, severed the acquaintance with my poor friend. They also dismissed the superfluous servant who had been one cause of contention many months before.

Mortified, but not humbled, was my unhappy friend; and her foolish propensity to despise the 'I cannot afford it' system, clung to her with terrible tenacity. The effects of this were eventually ruinous. In the course of years, Mrs. Wilson's great expectations, one after another, failed of their accomplishment; her husband became violent in his reproaches; her children were mismanaged; her home was a scene of perpetual discomfort and frequent distress. Wilson became extravagant too; but in other forms than those in which his wife delighted; and reasoned with on the subject, he gloomily answered that the money would be spent in one way or other, and he was deterinined, at all events, to have some hand in spending it. For some mismanagement, amounting almost to embezzlement, in his office, he lost at once his situ ation and his character--his energy had long before been lost, and he died of-yes, of a broken heart, when his eldest son was about twelve years old. And not long after this, Mrs. Wilson died also-in a lunatic asylum.

Reader, this is not an unreal sketch, nor is the catastrophe exaggerated. Many such things have happened, and are yet in progress around us, to exemplify and illustrate the indisputable fact, that domestic extravagance is almost sure to issue in domestic misery-in many instances in loss of character-and in every case, in the hard necessity for real instead of fancied sacrifices, if not in total ultimate ruin.

125

THE SPARE BED ROOM.

MRS. EDWARD TRACY was said to have bee brought up and trained in a good school of domestic manage ment and family economy; and, as a general rule, she did not approve of spare bed-rooms.

It was all very well, to be sure, when her mother, or her sister, paid her a visit, to have somewhere to put them; but then, as Mrs. Browne, her mother, said, 'You know, dear, that I don't often, and when I or Kate do come, it would be easy to make up a shake-down for Mr. Tracy for a few nights, while we shared your bed.'

And so, no doubt, it would have been, if Mr. Tracy had liked the plan; but he didn't like it, and on this point he showed signs of intractability-very unreasonable, as Mrs. T. thought. So for the early years of his married life, the gentleman maintained his ground, and kept his spare bed-room.

Mr. Edward Tracy was a good-natured, easytempered man, in a small way of business as a merchant, in the flourishing town of Blank; that is, a small way with a qualification. It was not so small that he could not afford a neat little private residence in the semi-genteel quarter of the town; but it was not large enough, by any means, to allow him to keep a carriage, nor even a riding horse: but then he did not want either. Neither was it so small that he had ever shrunk from entertaining a friend now and then ; and as he was somewhat given to hospitality, he had more friends of a sort than enemies of any sort, and the now and then' of his visitors were not like angel's visits, few and far between. But neither was his

business so large that he hadn't taken a long time for consideration before entering on the grave cares of matrimony; he ventured at last, however, and was congratulated by his female friends-those of them, at any rate, who were already settled in life-on having chosen so good an help-meet as Miss Browne; for everybody knew, said they, what an excellent manager her mother is.

Well, and so she was; and so also did Mrs. Edward Tracy prove herself to be: and thence did it arise that there was one point on which, as we said, Mr. Tracy and Mrs. Tracy could not agree,—and this was the spare bed-room.

Sometimes the disagreement commenced in a sort of coaxing way :-' Edward, dear, what a nice sittingroom that spare bed-room would make. Such a charming prospect from the window, and no alteration required but to take down the bed, and put in a few extra bits of furniture. The same paper hanging would do and the same chairs; and you know we have only that little parlour down stairs, and the drawing-room on the first floor. Of course we don't want to use the drawing-room every day, and the parlour is so dull, looking out into the dirty street as it does. What do you say, dear?'

'I would have no objection in the world, Martha, if you would turn the parlour into a spare bed

room :-'

'Edward, how ridiculous!'

'I cannot see any other way, Martha love; for you see we must have a spare bed somewhere. There's your mother's coming to spend a week with us soon; and what should we do with her ?'

Mrs. Tracy hinted at the shake-down; but it would not do. 'My old friend Jones is coming this way next month, and you see we must put him somewhere.'

Martha gently remarked that next month would be a very inconvenient time to receive a gentleman visitor. 'But really, my dear, I cannot help it. We must

try and make it convenient; Jones always has, for I don't know how many years, not missing one, paid me a visit in August; and I told him that being married would not make any difference. You gave me leave to say that, Martha love.'

'Yes, but I did not know how inconvenient it would be.' And there, for that time, the conversation dropped.

Sometimes the disagreement commenced in a way of economical calculation. Martha was a good hand at reckoning': she could demonstrate to a penny how much every visitor added to the expense of housekeeping.

There was Mr. Jones, for instance, whom, to give the lady her due of praise, she had received when she found there was no help for it, with politeness, and treated so that he had no cause for complaint: but there was Mr. Jones, who had prolonged his visit to a week. And only think how much that visit had cost so much for meat, and so much for drink, and 'twasn't a little that served him either; and so much for candle light, and so much for an extra help for a whole day to put things in order after he had left, and so much for sheet washing and towel washing, and so much for

'Well but, Martha-ah, Martha, thou carest for many things-but Martha, I reckon these extras all in the lump with the rest; I always have done, love, and I don't see that I am much the poorer for them. At any rate, I can manage to pay my way, and something over; and that's a comfort. But I really think, my love, you were almost too kind to my old friend Jones, who would have been quite content, I am sure, with our plain way of living in general, instead of

Mrs. Tracy cut her husband short here. She had no notion, she said, of doing things by halves. If she must have visitors, she would treat them as visitors.

'And why not as friends, my love? Just hear what Mr. Emerson says; and Mr. Tracy took up a