Let us see how this is. Perhaps we can find out the leak that wasted the substance of Ralph Lyon. He never drank less than three glasses a-day, and sometimes four; and his tobacco cost, for smoking and chewing, just twelve and a half cents a week. Now, how much would all this amount to? Why, to just sixty-five dollars a year, provided but three glasses a-day were taken, and nothing was spent in treating a friend. But the limit was not always observed, and the consequence was, that, take the year through, at least eighty dollars were spent in drinking, smoking, and chewing. Understanding this, the thing is very plain. In four years, eighty dollars saved in each year would give the handsome sum of three hundred and twenty dollars. Thomas Jones neither drank, smoked, nor chewed, and, consequently, not only saved money enough in a few years to build himself a snug little house, but could afford, during the time, to let his wife have a washer-woman to help her every week, and to dress much more comfortably than Sally Lyon had been able to do. The difference in the condition of the two families sets Mrs. Lyon to thinking very seriously about the matter, and thinking and calculating soon made the cause quite plain to her. It was the drinking and the smoking. But with a discovery of the evil did not come a cheering consciousness of its easy removal. How could she ask Ralph to give up his glass and his tobacco, to both of which he seemed so strongly wedded? He worked hard for his money, and if he chose to enjoy it in that way, she had no heart to interfere with him. But from the time that Ralph discovered how well his neighbor Jones was getting along, while he, like a horse in a mill, had been toiling and sweating for years, and yet stood in the same place, he became dissatisfied, and often expressed this dissatisfaction to Sally, at the same time declaring his inability to tell where all the money he earned went to. At length Sally ventured to hint at the truth. But Ralph met it with— “Pooh! nonsense! Don’t tell me that a glass of liquor, now and then, and a bit of tobacco, are going to make all that difference. It isn’t reasonable. Besides, I work very hard, and I ought to have a little comfort with it when I’m tired, a glass warms me up, and makes me bright again; and I am sure I couldn’t do without my pipe.” “I don’t ask you to do so, Ralph,” replied Sally. “I only said what I did, that you might see why we couldn’t save money like our neighbor Jones. I am sure I am very careful in our expenses, and I haven’t bought myself a new gown for a long time, although I am very bare of clothes.” The way in which Ralph replied to his wife’s suggestion of the cause of the evil complained of, determined her to say no more; and as he felt some convictions on the subject, which he was not willing to admit, he was ever afterward silent about the unaccountable way in which his money went.