and altogether the life is not invaribly elevating. For a bride with little to do all day while her husband is at business, or for a young mother, the boarding house is hardly so fitting a shelter as the simplest home. It would seem, all things being equal, that it is usually wiser not to dread the day of small things; but to begin at once as one hopes to go on. Even if there is not very much money, if there is a good deal of love; if there is common sense and prudence and loyalty, the two will start better under their own roof than they will under the roof of a neighbor.

The wife, particularly, may as well grow used to marketing, catering, cooking and doing the various things which are implied in housekeeping for two, finding even her inexperience full of lessons and learning by her very mistakes. Nobody should fear housekeeping because she has had no practice in it. Whatever people may tell you, there is nothing occult or difficult about the simple processes of housekeeping, and nothing at all which a sensible, intelligent, average American girl cannot master in six weeks if she gives her attention to the matter. I speak on this subject with feeling, because when I began myself I did not know any more about practical housewifery than a child of six, and my attention had always been given to things quite opposite the mysteries of the kitchen and dining room; but I found very speedily that if I had to show other people, I must know how myself, and so there was nothing for it but to start right in and learn how to broil a steak, bake a loaf and do whatever was to be done about the house.

There are many manuals which greatly assist the young housekeeper; but that which aids her beyond all else is the determination not to be daunted by difficulties, but to prove herself equal to any situation, and superior to any emergency, let either be what it will.

I take it for granted that most young wives have mothers who can advise them as to the best ways of management, and all husbands have mothers who have been patterns of perfection. The man does not live who will not tell you that his mother's doughnuts, his mother's pies, his mother's puddings, and viands in his mother's house generally, surpassed anything he will ever again find on the face of the wide earth. Do not take exception to this very natural feeling on his part. The man looks back through the glamour of a happy mist and he forgets that in the days when his mother's cooking melted so sweetly in his mouth, he brought to the homeliest fare the appetite of a hungry, growing boy. Besides, men, as a rule, are more or less given to exploiting their relatives to their wives, and to boast of their wives' wonderful attainments to other people. Many a wife would be surprised to hear how genially her husband praises her when he is out of her sight and hearing. At all events, it is quite a good plan for the young wife to ask advice and accept assistance wherever she can get it. We learn a great deal

in this world by keeping our eyes open and observing what is going on; also we learn a good deal by the simple method of asking questions. Nothing is ever learned without attention and industry, and in the science of housekeeping it is quite worth while to study the ways of those who have gone before us, and to gain by what they have to give.

A good cookery book is a friend in need and nobody should think of beginning housekeeping without one or without several of these useful advisers. The best housekeepers and the most expert cooks are those who follow implicitly the

directions laid down in recipes. Of course there are people who seem to cook by nature, and who throw things together with apparent ease and produce results which justify their hap-hazard way of cooking. These people belong to the order of cooks who are born, not made. The most of us, however, must pursue a different method, and we will find it to our advantage to have a formula and to follow it literally.

My dear and honored friend, Marian Harland, one day in her kitchen said to her Irish cook: "Do you know where 'Common Sense in the Household' is?" -this being her own famous manual of cookery. The book was not at hand and was sent for, and while Mrs. Terhune waited for it the cook took occasion to remark in a lofty manner: "It's a poor cook that needs a receipt book." This was very amusing, addressed to a woman who stood at the head of the housekeeping profession in America, but it was the attitude of the mind of ignorance, not of knowledge. Besides, there is no use in our burdening our memories with a lot of useless luggage. Why should we remember things which we may just as well have set down in a book, to which we can refer at need. If you are to make a dessert, whatever it be, simply look at your recipe and follow it exactly, and if you are careful to have everything just as the book tells you you should, your result will probably justify the pains you take.

Housekeeping for two implies smaller quantities than are usually given in the ordinary cook book, and therefore it will be necessary for you quite often to halve or quarter the amounts which you find in the recipes. This, however, is an easy matter. One needs to bring to bear on everything in life common sense and judgment. The bill of fare in the simplest home is usually more varied than that which obtains in a boarding house, for the reason that the housekeeper does not suffer herself to fall into a rut. There is an art, too, in buying. In this country we are given to laying in large quantities of things. We might easily take a lesson from the housekeepers of France and of Italy. In Paris one buys exactly what she wants for a meal. The purchasing is done in very small quantities, and everything is carefully counted down to the fraction of a cent. Here we are very apt to despise small economies, the result being that our purses are lean and in most households we waste enough to support another family. When, some years ago, there was a great war debt to be paid by France, the people found themselves quite equal to the added strain because they were a nation of great frugality and everybody was able to bear his proportion. In dry groceries, such as sugar, flour, etc., there is sometimes an advantage in purchasing in the larger quantity. Soap gains by being kept on hand, as it hardens and does not waste away so fast as when first made, when it is soft and easily melts away in the water; but there are many things of which it is best to buy only what you want at the moment. The housekeeper's rule should be to keep her living expenses well within her income. Only thus can there be real comfort and the absence of anxiety in domestic life.

Above everything else, avoid debt. It hangs around one's neck like a millstone, it fetters hands and feet, and it robs one of all self-respect. Nobody can look himself in the face in the looking-glass, without a blush, unless he " owes not any man." Retrenchment, self-sacrifice, honest poverty, are far to be preferred to debt.

CHAPTER XVII.

Florilla's Sanitarium.

OU can't stay here by yourself, Florilla. It will be too desolate.
Rent the old house for the summer, and come to New York
with me. There must be many things which a clever girl
like you can find to do in a big city."

any.

Perhaps there are, Aunt Adela, but I don't know of

In the meantime I must live, and it costs less to live

here than it would in town. I have grandmother's little legacy as a nest-egg, the garden will furnish me with fruit and vegetables, the bees will give me honey, and old Keziah would be homeless if I went away. She takes the heaviest end of the work, and I think I cannot do better than to stay right here among the people who have known me since I was born. I shall miss dear grandmother terribly."

"She has been a great care," said Aunt Adela, "and very hard to get on with for the last two years, but you were very patient, Florilla."

"Well, Auntie, it isn't hard to be patient with one you love. And if the young and strong cannot bear with the old, and make allowances for their weakness, I think they are very poor creatures; very unworthy of respect. Grandmother had been active so long that she felt being laid aside more than most people do, and somehow, toward the end, I had two sorts of love for her: the love of a child for a mother, and the love of a mother for a child. I shall miss her, dear grandmother."

"I never knew her very intimately," Aunt Adela replied after a pause. "I never met your father's people much till I came back from Italy, after your mother died. But your grandmother was a good woman, Florilla. The thing which troubles me, though, is leaving you alone, and I must take the first train back in the morning. I have been away as long as I can be spared from home." "I haven't had time for planning yet, Auntie, but this is what I have thought of. Here is this pretty house with the hills in the background and the lovely lake in front; here is the comfortable furnishing, the airy rooms, and the good beds are here, and a plentiful supply of linen; everything, in fact, that a house needs. I am not a trained nurse, but I am accustomed to an invalid, and I have a practical knowledge of what the sick want. Keziah is devoted to me. I think I will carry on a sanitarium in a very modest way here in my home."

"You can but try," said Aunt Adela.

"It will be hard work, and if you

For

should not succeed, you can always come to me and rent or sell this place. my part, I have lived so long in the stir and bustle of New York, that I don't care for the country, except for a little while in the summer, but you have grown accustomed to it, I suppose, and it does not seem so lonesome, so dreary."

"I love it, dear, I just love it. I love the fields and the flowers, the old apple trees in the south meadow, the willows by the lake, the silence and the sweetness, and the kind neighbors who call me Florrie as they did when I was a little girl. I could not be contented where trolley cars were clanging and elevated railroads thundering along all day."

"Tea is ready, Florilla," said old Keziah, putting her head in at the parlor door. Keziah would not have thought of prefixing a "Miss" to the name of the young woman she had carried in her arms as a baby, though she served her as loyally as a baroness of the middle ages was served by her maidens. A strong old woman and capable, Keziah Sinn might be depended on to guard Florilla Dawes.

The two ladies went out to a country tea of fresh eggs, scones, honey, and cream so thick that a spoon in it stood straight up, like a sentry on duty. Aunt Adela, looking about her at the old-fashioned luxury of everything could not but admit to herself that her niece had at least the environment suited to her purpose. But, dear me," she thought, what is five hundred dollars, and that is all Florilla has, besides the house.”

To Florilla the five hundred dollars seemed a large sum. She had rarely had five dollars in her pocket-book at one time, in her whole life, and she had never yet needed money, living in a place where barter covered most of the simple transactions. There was no mortgage on the house, and Florilla had not a debt in the world.

After she had seen her Aunt Adela off the next morning she went down the long village street to the doctor's house, and told her old friend what she wished to do. To Dr. Sanford there was nothing fanciful or absurd in Florilla's proposition. On the contrary, he thought well of it, as a practical notion which could easily be carried out. He told her that he had an old classmate in town whose specialty was treating nervous patients and those in need of a rest cure, and he volunteered to write to Doctor Lawrence at once, in Florilla's behalf.

"You get your house-cleaning done, child," he said. "Not that you are not always as neat as a pin, but women aren't satisfied unless they turn the whole house out of the windows every spring and fall."

Three weeks later, when the faint golden-green of the April orchards had deepened to a richer tone, and the land was everywhere a tossing sea of pink and white blossoms, Florilla Dawes received a thick letter from New York. The great