Maintain your confidence

“Queer, isn’t it?” laughed Margaretta. “I’ll go back to the beginning and explain. You know, Roger, I am not such a terribly strong person, and I do love to lie in bed in the morning. It is so delicious when you know you ought to get up, to roll yourself in the soft clothes and have another nap! You remember that I had got into a great way of having my breakfast in bed. Well, madam in bed meant carelessness in the kitchen. We have honest servants, Roger, but they are heedless. After my shock from Grandma about economy, I said, ‘I will reform. I will watch the cents, and the cents will watch the dollars Hong Kong Movie Tour.’

“Now, to catch the first stray cent, it was necessary to get up early. I just hated to do it, but I made myself. I sprang out of bed in the morning, had my cold plunge, and was down before you, and it was far more interesting to have company for breakfast than to have no one, wasn’t it?”

“Well, rather.”

“You good boy. You never complained. Well, cook was immensely before breakfast. One morning I found her making pastry, and putting the most delicious-looking[45] yellow butter in it. ‘Why, that’s our table butter,’ I said, ‘isn’t it, that comes from Cloverdale, and costs a ridiculous amount dermes hk?’

“She said it was.

“‘Why don’t you use cooking-butter, Jane?’ I asked; ‘it’s just as good, isn’t it?’

“‘Well, ma’am, there’s nothing impure about it,’ she said, ‘but I know you like everything of the best, so I put this in.’

“‘Jane,’ I said, ‘never do it again. I’m going to economize, and I want you to help me. If you can’t, I must send you away and get some one else.’

“She laughed—you know what a fat, good-natured creature she is—and seemed to think it a kind of joke that I should want to economize.

“‘Jane,’ I said, ‘I’m in earnest.’

“Then she sobered down. ‘Truth, and I’ll help you, ma’am, if you really want me to. There’s lots of ways I can save for you, but I thought you didn’t care. You always seem so open-handed flu virus.’

“‘Well, Jane,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be mean, and I don’t want adulterated food, but my husband and I are young, and we want to save something for old age. Now you’ll help us, won’t you?’

“‘Honour bright, I will, ma’am,’ she said, and I believed her. I can’t stay in the kitchen and watch[46] her, but she watches herself, and just read that list of groceries and see what else she has saved.”

“How have you found out the exact list of your economies?” asked Roger, curiously.

“By comparing my bills of this month with those of the month before. For instance, sugar was so many dollars in June; in July it is so many dollars less. Of course, we must take into account that we have been entertaining less. Have you noticed it?”

“Yes, but I thought it only a passing whim.”

“Some whims don’t pass, they stay,” said Margaretta, shaking her head. “Go on, Roger.”

“One hundred and fifty dollars saved in not entertaining Miss Gregory—pray who is Miss Gregory?”

“That society belle from Newport who has been staying with the Darley-Jameses.”

“How does she come into your expenditures?”

“She doesn’t come in,” said Margaretta, with satisfaction. “I haven’t done a thing for her beyond being polite and talking to her whenever I get a chance, and, oh, yes—I did give her a drive.”

“Well, but—”

“Let me explain. If I hadn’t been taken with a fit of economy, I would, in the natural order of[47] things, have made a dinner for Miss Gregory. I would have had a picnic, and perhaps a big evening party. Think what it would have cost—you remember Mrs. Handfell?”

Her husband made a face.