There was quite a little romance about this young couple, which I will relate here, that those who may follow the young wife’s trials and triumphs may understand some that she had to fear. Harry Bishop was the son of a prosperous merchant, who, as is the fashion in this America of ours, lived almost like a prince on the profits of his business, but, as his family was large, and his wife ambitious and extravagant, it was not very certain that he would be able to provide a fortune for each of his children. For this reason he and Mrs. Bishop were anxious that those children should marry money. When Harry declared his intention of marrying, instead of the rich Miss Vanderpool his mother had looked out for him, pretty, penniless Molly Marsh, the anger and disappointment at home had been very great, and although it is not the fashion in this country to cast off the sons and daughters who make rash marriages, they did the next thing to it,—they disapproved so strongly that Molly rarely visited the grand home Harry had given up to marry her, and Harry’s father in his anger had said: “Do you remember, sir, that your paltry salary wouldn’t pay the rent of a house in a decent location? and you propose to keep a wife on it! One thing you may be sure, ‘as you make your bed so you must lie,’ and when you have a mass of unpaid bills, you mustn’t look to _me_ to pay ’em.” “I never will, sir. I am sorry for Molly’s sake you take it like this, but I hope in time you will see that I am right to choose happiness instead of riches.” And then Harry’s mother had pictured the sordid home kept on $100 a month, and derisively asked if he supposed he would be happy after the honeymoon was over, eating common coarse food in a shabby little dining-room. “The idea of it! You are the last person, Harry, to content yourself in that way. Why, you criticise even my cook; how will you do with no cook at all?” “I shouldn’t criticise, dear mother, if you did the cooking.” They had been married a year now, and Molly and Harry paid rare visits to his father’s house, and she, poor young wife, was made to feel how much her husband had sacrificed for her, and she knew, good as Harry was, he would be rather exacting in his own home; that, though for love of her he might not express himself, small deficiencies would jar on him, and that in beginning to keep house she would be undertaking a great deal. “But that will be my share. If by devoting time to my housekeeping, I can make Harry’s money go half as far again as it would otherwise do, I shall do as much as if I earned half as much as he.” And so during that year of boarding and leisure, Molly had attended cooking-classes, with a married friend, and had gone home with her and they had practiced together. She had read, too, everything she could find about housekeeping, and Harry laughed, sometimes, till the tears ran down his cheeks at what he called her “paper housekeeping.”