My Dear Child, this world is nothing but an ant-hill, and we are quite insignificant ants, each toiling along with his or her little burden, and when one ant gets another to help carry the load, the other ants don't mind it much, but push on with their burdens. Some day we go out of sight into the alluvium of the hill, burden and all, and forget to come out again, but even then, strange to say, the other ants don't miss us or stop to look after us, but keep pushing on, this way and that, and running over each other, and quarrelling about burdens. Therefore, my dear, I would advise you to let Mrs. Grundy carry her burden and pay no attention to her. Take your meals regularly and your usual allowance of sleep. It will be better for your peace and your digestion. And again, my dear Aurelia, I am afraid you are going to make a splurge. A splurge is a good thing if you can keep splurging. If, when you set off like a rocket, you can keep going like a rocket, brilliant and beautiful, it will be a very good thing to do. But if you start like a rocket, and come down like a poor, miserable stick, with a wad of burned pasteboard on the end of you, you had better never have been touched off, because everybody will say they knew it would be so, and you yourself will sit in ashes all your life, clothing yourself with sackcloth, and lamenting your silliness in trying to make a splurge. Now your future husband is making a comfortable living, and by the practice of ordinary economy you and he may get along very comfortably. In regard to your legacy there is no certainty. Your uncle's lungs and liver are much better than your husband's, and even if your husband should outlive him, there may be nothing left to give you, so that after spreading your choice dishes for your guests you may have to come down to potsherds yourself. Do not splurge, therefore, unless you are ready to keep up your splurge. Beware of going into the large end of the horn and coming out of the little end, for you will be very thin when you come out, and Mrs. Grundy will laugh at you. I think it is better, if there is any uncertainty about your prospects, to go in at the little end, and then when you come out at the large end, you can come out in style and with plenty of room. But, under any and all circumstances, splurging is dangerous, and in nine cases out of ten will land you, heels upwards, kicking at space. You, yourself, my dear, will remember that on one occasion, when you were a little late at church and had on that new hat, you tried to splurge up the aisle and sat down suddenly upon the floor, with the whole congregation looking at you. Just so will it be all through life. If you have a weak point about you--and, my Dear Child, you have many (here Minerva actually nodded assent)--a splurge will be sure to discover that point to the spectator. Therefore I would advise you and your husband to launch your craft very quietly.