No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together by sharing these hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I don't feel easy about it. We are quite in sympathy, but there is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I affirm, is the nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that she does it on purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea what I mean. I sometimes wonder wistfully if the hand that put that ugly new steel contraption at the back of the fire to save the coal is really the hand that I wooed and won ten years ago. I see in her the steady growth of an implacable conscience. In moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she always wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance till now. We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at all hard up and we had no compunctions about spending money. But now--I wonder how long the War will last? What I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I am already guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them, but she isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The garden is to be reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the house. We are going to travel first, and I am not sure that we shan't have a new cook. And we are to have an Airedale and an Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama. As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only want to have something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever get back to the _status quo ante_ I will not ask for annexations. Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her latest suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit with benzine (I don't like the smell of it) instead of getting a new one. Only I live in a growing fear that the day when peace is signed in Europe will be the signal for an outbreak of a new form of warfare in our happy home. * * * * * [Illustration: _Mistress_ (_from upper window_). "WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?" _Romantic Maid_. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE OWLS, MA'AM."] * * * * * WHAT DID MR. ASQUITH DO? A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal meeting by asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr. GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or whatever year it was. Nobody knew, and neither did the inquirer himself, but uproar followed and his end was achieved. Now had the question run, "What did Mr. GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE, apart from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two priceless things, as I will show.