"Ah, the bill!" There it was, pinned conspicuously on the flap of the basque. Mr. Murden detached it, and read the amount: "$13 29 cts. Received payment, Ann Stringer." "Good gracious, my dear, what a mistake! More than half as much as the dress cost!" Mrs. Murden caught at the straw. Perhaps it was a mistake, and the wrong bill had been sent to her. But there was no such good fortune; there it was, in Miss Elbert's own hard, angular handwriting, item by item. And Mr. Murden paid it on the spot, for he never allowed a bill to be presented twice; but he went out without returning to the parlor, and shut the front door with a bang, to countermand the new overcoat which he had been measured for that afternoon, and which he needed badly. It was weeks before the purple silk was again alluded to by him, and spring before Mrs. Murden could afford to purchase undersleeves and a chemisette to wear with it. She walked to church in the mazarine blue beside the shabby overcoat, with its threadbare sleeves and rusty collar, a humbler and a better woman. It was only when Mr. Murden discovered what a cure the surfeit of finery in Mrs. Stringer's fitting-room had wrought, that he quite pardoned the folly and extravagance of the purple silk. "For," as Mrs. Murden said, "there must always be a great many people better dressed, spend what she would, so where was the use? And, after all, comfort was the thing, not show." The purple silk became quite a favorite eventually, for Mr. Murden did not consider the lesson dearly bought at thirty-three dollars and twenty-nine cents, since it was to last a lifetime. [Illustration] MANAGEMENT OF CANARY BIRDS. BY request of a correspondent, we publish the following from Mrs. Hale's "New Household Receipt-Book:"--