Sir John Belfield declared, that though he had not that natural antipathy to a wit, which some men have; yet unless the wildness of a wit was tamed like the wildness of other animals, by domestic habits, he himself would not choose to venture on one. He added, that he should pay a bad compliment to Lady Belfield, who had so much higher claims to his esteem, if he were to allege that these habits were the determining cause of his choice, yet had he seen no such tendencies in her character, he should have suspected her power of making him as happy as she had done. "I confess with shame," said Mr. Carlton, "that one of the first things that touched me with any sense of my wife's merit, was the admirable good sense she discovered in the direction of my family. Even at the time that I had most reason to blush at my own conduct, she never gave me cause to blush for hers. The praises constantly bestowed on her elegant, yet prudent, arrangement, by my friends, flattered my vanity, and raised her in my opinion, though they did not lead me to do her full justice." The two ladies who were thus agreeably flattered, looked modestly grateful. Mr. Stanley said, "I was going to endeavor at removing Miss Sparke's prejudices, by observing how much this domestic turn brings the understanding into action. The operation of good sense is requisite in making the necessary calculations for a great family, in a hundred ways. Good sense is required to teach that a perpetually recurring small expense is more to be avoided than an incidental great one, while it shows that petty savings can not retrieve an injured estate. The story told by Johnson, of a lady, who, while ruining her fortune by excessive splendor and expense, yet refused to let a two shilling mango be cut at her table, exemplifies exactly my idea. Shabby curtailments, without repairing the breach which prodigality has made, discredit the husband, and bring the reproach of meanness on the wife. Retrenchments, to be efficient, must be applied to great objects. The true economist will draw in by contracting the outline, by narrowing the bottom, by cutting off with an unsparing hand costly superfluities, which affect not comfort, but cherish vanity." "'Retrench the lazy vermin of thine hall,' was the wise counsel of the prudent Venetian to his thoughtless son-in-law," said Sir John, "and its wisdom consisted in its striking at one of the most ruinous and prevailing domestic evils, an overloaded establishment." If Miss Sparkes had been so long without speaking, it was evident by her manner and turn of countenance, that contempt had kept her silent, and that she thought the topic under discussion as unworthy of the support of the gentleman as of her own opposition.