I am not sorry that I have no _special_ faculty for saving; for I have never known any, in whom such was well developed, who would not do things they ought to be ashamed of. The savings of such people seem to me to come quite as much off other people as off themselves; and, especially in regard of small sums, they are in danger of being first mean, and then dishonest. Certainly, whoever makes saving _the_ end of her life, must soon grow mean, and will probably grow dishonest. But I have never succeeded in drawing the line betwixt meanness and dishonesty: what is mean, so far as I can see, slides by indistinguishable gradations into what is plainly dishonest. And what is more, the savings are commonly made at the cost of the defenceless. It is better far to live in constant difficulties than to keep out of them by such vile means as must, besides, poison the whole nature, and make one's judgments, both of God and her neighbors, mean as her own conduct. It is nothing to say that you must be just before you are generous, for that is the very point I am insisting on; namely, that one must be just to others before she is generous to herself. It will never do to make your two ends meet by pulling the other ends from the hands of those who are likewise puzzled to make them meet. But I must now put myself at the bar, and cry _Peccavi_; for I was often wrong on the other side, sometimes getting things for the house before it was quite clear I could afford them, and sometimes buying the best when an inferior thing would have been more suitable, if not to my ideas, yet to my purse. It is, however, far more difficult for one with an uncertain income to learn to save, or even to be prudent, than for one who knows how much exactly every quarter will bring. My husband, while he left the whole management of money matters to me, would yet spend occasionally without consulting me. In fact, he had no notion of money, and what it would or would not do. I never knew a man spend less upon himself; but he would be extravagant for me, and I dared hardly utter a foolish liking lest he should straightway turn it into a cause of shame by attempting to gratify it. He had, besides, a weakness for over-paying people, of which neither Marion nor I could honestly approve, however much we might admire the disposition whence it proceeded. Now that I have confessed, I shall be more easy in my mind; for, in regard of the troubles that followed, I cannot be sure that I was free of blame. One word more in self-excuse, and I have done: however imperative, it is none the less hard to cultivate two opposing virtues at one and the same time.