There are two sides in accounts, which are usually represented by opposite pages in a book. The right-hand page is the _Credit_ side; the left hand page is the _Debit_ side. On the right hand, or Credit, page are written the sums of money we have or acquire. Credit is related to the word creed. The reason for this relationship is, that a credit page represents how much we may be believed in financially; and to what amount people believed in us who paid us for work; and to what amount people believed in us who gave us gifts in money. On the left-hand, or Debit, page are written the sums of money we have paid out. The word debit is related to due and duty and _devoir_. Therefore, on this page go the amounts which have been _due_ to others for the things which we have had, and which it has been our _duty_ to pay because we have had these things. If we are honourable people, we will do our _devoir_ in this matter. At the end of a day, or a week, or a month, as seems best, the account is balanced. This word _balanced_ is a metaphor. By its means the credit and the debit pages are changed into the pans of a pair of scales, and the account is balanced when they hang even. That is, when the items on the debit page add up to the same amount that the items on the credit page add up to, the account balances. But suppose the pages do not add up to the same amount--they rarely do, and they rarely should--What then? Then the metaphor of the balance suggests what to do. If one scalepan is lighter than the other, put a weight into it. If the debit side is lighter, that is, if it is less than the credit side, add on the amount which will make it even with the credit side, and write beside that amount, "Balance." In that case, there is a little money yet unspent, and when the next two pages of the accounts are begun this money yet unspent is put down at the head of the credit page like this: Balance on hand $2.39 If, on the contrary, the credit side is less than the debit side, add the balance there. This means that something has been bought which has not been paid for, and the meaning of another word related to debit becomes intrusive--_debt_. Debt is sometimes a temporary necessity--like oxygen pumped into lungs which can no longer pump for themselves; sometimes it is a calamity, sometimes it is a disgrace; and it is always dangerous. Two pages of an account such as a girl might keep of her personal expenses, when balanced at the end of a week, look like this:--