We laugh at the counted lumps of sugar in France, forgetting that sugar here is sixpence a pound, and becomes an item to be considered. I remember once feeling some sympathy with the French carefulness of sugar. An Irish girl, whom I did not know, somewhere in the twenties, and consequently supposed to conduct herself like a reasonable being, thrust accidentally upon me for hospitality for a single night,—which, owing to unforeseen circumstances, was prolonged to ten or twelve days,—did me the honour to consume a pound of sugar a day at my expense. In every cup of tea she melted nearly a dozen large French lumps of sugar, and she drank many cups in the day; also she ate sugar continually as other women munch sweets, and as she disliked cold red wine, she insisted on heating it with quantities of sugar until it was turned into a syrup. When my grocer sent in his monthly account, with sugar at sixpence a pound in enormous excess, I felt it would be a singular advantage for Ireland if a little judicious thrift were practised in Irish homes. The young lady’s father went bankrupt shortly afterwards, and I cannot say I was at all surprised. He was an ordinary burgess, who worked hard to maintain a large and extravagant family, and my guest once told me that her sister frequently ran up a bill at the florist’s for boutonnières to the sum of thirty shillings a month, which her father had to pay. French thrift, if it does so often touch hands with meanness, at least implies the exercise of a quality we all should admire, even when we cannot practise it, thanks to taste, training, or temperament—hardness to ourselves, the capacity for voluntary self-suffering.