strain. The aspect was worse than either thought: Mrs. Courteney really did not know its extent, and the Captain was careless and blind. The Captain had received his quarterly income, and had immediately parted with most it, for sundry demands were pressing. How they were to go on to the next quarter, and how the Christmas bills were to be paid, was hidden in the womb of the future. "They are so much larger than usual," murmured Captain Courteney, drawing a china basket towards him, the bills' receptacle, and leisurely proceeding to unfold some of them. "Each year brings additional expense," remarked Mrs. Courteney. "Four servants cost more than three: not to speak of the children; though they are but little expense yet." Captain Courteney had the contents of one of the bills under his eye at the time his wife spoke. "Little expense, you say, Augusta! I suppose this is for them, and it's pretty near £20. It's headed 'Clark's Baby-linen Warehouse."" "I meant in the matter of food. Of course they have to be clothed; and I don't know any thing more costly than infants' dress. Cambric, and lace, and bassinettes, and all the rest of it." "So I should think," quoth the Captain; "here's thirty shillings for six shirts. Do you put babies into shirts ?” "What else should we put them into ?" "How long are they a foot? Five shillings a shirt! Why, it's nearly as much as I give for mine." "Delicate French cambric, trimmed with Valenciennes," explained Mrs. Courtenay. "We can not dress a baby in sacking." could tell whether it was a monkey or a child." "Some of this lace is charged half-acrown a yard, and some three and sixpence." "The three and sixpenny was for the christening. Of course that had to be good." "I saw some lace marked up at twopence a yard, yesterday, in Oxford-street, quite as pretty as any the baby wears, for all I can see. That would be good enough to tear, Augusta." "My dear, as you don't understand babies' things, the remark may be excused," said Mrs. Courteney. "Common rubbish of cotton lace is not fit- 99 "Hallo!" shouted the Captain, with an emphasis that startled his wife, as he opened another of the bills, "here's £94 for meat this year!" "So I saw,” mournfully replied Mrs. Courteney. "How can we have eaten meat to that amount? We can't have eaten it." "I suppose we have not eaten it, you and I; but it has been consumed in the house," was the testy rejoinder of Mrs. Courteney, whose conscience secretly accused her of something being radically wrong in the housekeeping department, and which she, its head, did not know how to set to rights. "Besides the fish and poultry bills, and lots of game we had sent to us, and I sometimes dining at the club! How is it, Augusta ?" "I wish I could tell how it is," she answered; "that is, I wish I could tell how to lessen it. The bills come in weekhop-ly, and I look them over, and there's not a single joint that seems to have been had in unnecessarily. They do eat enormously in the kitchen, but how is it to be prevented? We can not lock up the food." The servants must be outrageously extravagant." "Lace is the largest item in the bill. Here's three pounds eighteen shillings for lace, Augusta." "Oh! they are dreadful little things to destroy their cap borders. When they get three or four months old, up go their hands and away they pull, and the lace is soon in tatters. This last darling baby has already destroyed two." "Throw off their caps and let them pull at their own heads, if they want to pull," cried the Captain. "That's how I should cure them, Augusta." "Would you," retorted Mrs. Courte"A baby without a cap is frightful. Except for its long white robes, nobody ney. "I often tell you so, but you don't listen, and I am at continual warfare with the cook. As to the butter, that goes, it must melt, for it never can be used. She makes out that you and I and the children eat four pounds of flesh every week. And they are so exacting about their own dinner. They are not satisfied with what remains of meat may be in the house, and making it do, meat that I know would be amply sufficient, but must have something in addition-pork chops, or sausages, or something of that sort. And thus the meat bill runs up." Captain Courteney answered only by a gesture of annoyance. Perhaps his wife took it to reflect upon herself. "But what am I to do, Robert? I can not go and preside at their dinner, and portion it out; and I can not say soand-so is enough and you shall have no more, when cook declares it is not. I tell them they are not to eat meat at supper, but I may as well tell the sun not to shine, for I know they do. I would turn them off to-morrow, all the lot, if I thought I could change for the better, but I might only get worse, for they would be sure to go and give the place a bad name, out of revenge." "Can't you change the cook ?" "I have changed her three times in the last year, and each one seems to have less notion of economy than the last. They are fair-spoken before my face and second all I say, but the extravagance is not diminished." Captain Courteney opened the bills, bill by bill, and laid them in a stack on the table. "Augusta," said he, in a gravely serious tone, we must retrench, or we shall soon be in a hobble." 66 "I am willing," answered the wife; "but where can we begin?" "Let us consider," resumed the Captain, thoughtfully; "where can it be? It can not be in the rent and taxes, of course they must go on just the same, and the insurance, and I must pay the interest of the money we owe, and we must have our meals as usual. We must dismiss one of the servants." "That's equally impossible." returned Mrs. Courteney. "Which would you dismiss? Three children, two of them in arms, as one may say, require two nurses, and can not be attended to without. Then there must be two for the house: one could not wait, and cook, and clean, and answer the door-oh! impossible." Captain Courteney leaned his head upon his hand it did indeed seem as if there was not the slightest loophole in the domestic department which afforded chance of retrenchment. a "Miss Marsh," said the housemaid, ushering in a lady. Mrs. Courteney looked round for her sister Emily, but it was Aunt Clem. "Well," said she, as the Captain, with whom she was a favorite, ensconced her into the warmest seat, "and how are you getting on?" "Middling," laughed the Captain. "Looking blue over the Christmas bills." "Ah!" said Aunt Clem, as she took off her bonnet, "they are often written on blue paper. You should settle your bills weekly; it is the safest and most economical plan: if you let them run on, you pay for it through the nose." "I wish these accounts could be paid, even through the nose," cried the Captain. "Our expenses are getting the mastery, Aunt Clem, and we can not see where to retrench. We were talking about it now." "Is that heap all bills? Let me look at them. You need have no secrets from an old woman like me." The Captain tossed them into her lap, and the first she looked at happened to be the one for the baby linen. Aunt Clem studied it through her spectacles, and then studied Augusta's face. "Never saw any thing so extravagant in my life. Who did you think you were buying for? One of the little princesses ?" Augusta was too nettled to reply. "I don't see that a baby ought to cost as much as a man," put in the Captain; "but Augusta tells me I know nothing about it. I could get half a dozen shirts for thirty shillings." "Of course you could. And these ought to have cost six.” 66 Now, aunt ?" resentfully ejaculated Augusta. "How, pray?" "Six shillings at the very outside. You should have bought the lawn and made them yourself." "Babies' shirts at a shilling apiece!" said Augusta, scornfully. "These are richly trimmed with Valenciennes lace and insertion, Aunt Clem." "Trim my old bed-gown with Valenciennes !" irreverently snapped Aunt Clem. "It would be just as sensible a trick. Who sees the shirt when the baby has got it on? Nonsense, Augusta! Valenciennes lace may be very well in its proper place, but not for those who can't pay their Christmas bills." Augusta was indignant. The Captain only smiled. "What's this last ?" continued Aunt Clem. "Lace?-four pounds, less two shillings, for lace? Here, take your bill; I have seen enough of it. No wonder you find you accounts heavy, if they are | West-end society, and your gayeties, and all on this scale." "It is not dear," fired Augusta. "Halfa-crown a yard-the other was for the christening is cheap for babies' lace." "I told Augusta I saw some yesterday in a shop-window at two-pence a yard, and it looked as well," observed the Captain. "I don't quite say that," said Aunt Clem; "two-penny lace would neither look nor wear well. But there's another sort of lace, of medium quality, used almost exclusively for infants' caps: this man, Clark, sells quantities of it" "Trumpery cotton trash!" interrupted Mrs. Courteney. "It is a very pretty lace, rich-looking and durable," went on Aunt Clem, disdaining the interruption, "and if not thread, it looks like it, but I believe it to be thread. It will last for two children, and it costs about nine-pence a yard. Annis has never bought any other." "How can you say so, aunt? I'm sure her children's caps always look nice." "I know they do. You don't believe in this lace, because you have not looked out for it," observed Aunt Clem. "You go to Clark's stepping out of a cab, I dare say, at the door-and ask to look at some good nursery-lace. Of course they show you the good, the real, they don't attempt to show you any thing inferior. But Annis, when she was buying these things, went to Clark's-and I happened to be with her she did not ask, off-hand, for rich lace, or real lace, she said, 'Have you a cheaper description of lace that will wear and answer the purpose?' and they showed her what I tell you of. She bought no other, and very well it has worn and looks; it lasted her first baby, and it is lasting this one. I was so pleased with her method of going to work-not in the way of caps alone, mind you, but of every thing that I sent her four yards of pillow-lace from the country for a best cap for her child. At the time you were married," added Aunt Clem, looking at them both over her spectacles, "I said you would not do half as well as Lance and Annis, though you had nearly double their income. You are the wrong sort of folks." "At any rate, I can not be expected to understand lace," said the Captain. "But you might understand other things, and give them up," returned Aunt Clem. You might give up your VOL. XLIV.-NO. II. your extravagant mode of dressing"I'm sure I don't dress extravagantly," interrupted the Captain. "I'm sure you do," said Aunt Clem: "in that way you are worse that Augusta, and she's fine enough. It may not be extravagant in the abstract, but it is extravagant in proportion to your income. You might also give up having parties at home, and going out to them, and your wine at your club, and your theaters. Unless a man, who has only a limited income, can resign these amusements, he has no right to marry. But in saying this, I wish to cast no reflection on those who can not all men are not calculated by nature to economize in domestic privacy: only, let such keep single." "I suppose you think I was not," laughed Captain Courteney. Nor "I am positive you were not. Augusta either. And you'll have a hard fight and tussle before you can submit to its hardships. They will be sore hardships to you; to Lance and his wife they are pleasures: yet he is just as much of a gentleman as you are, and was brought up as expensively. But you are of totally different dispositions.” "What a pity we were not differently paired, since they are the two clever ones, and we the incapables; I with Lance, and Annis with Robert !" exclaimed Augusta sarcastically. "Then there would be four incapables instead of two-or what would amount to the same," unceremoniously observed Aunt_Clem. "You would have spent poor Lance out of house and home; and Annis would have led a weary and wretched life of it, for the Captain's expenses out of doors would have rendered futile her economy at home. No, you have been rightly paired. You have not half the comfort with your five hundred a year, that they have upon three." "Go on, go on, Aunt Clem," cried Augusta; "why don't you magnify them into angels? More comfort than we have! Look at our superior home, our mode of life, and compare it with theirs ; their paltry two servants and their shabby living. I don't suppose they taste wine once in a month." "And not tasting it, do not feel the want of it. But when you say shabby living, you are prejudiced, Augusta. Though their dinners are plain, though they may 14 consist generally but of one dish of roast | If you had but one dinner, the shoulder meat, or steaks, or cutlets, besides the vegetables, there is always plenty, and what more can people want than their stomachs-full. It used to be belly in my days, but I suppose the present age would be shocked out of its refinement to hear that word now." The Captain laughed, for Aunt Clem 'had talked herself into a heat. "As to wine, Lance might surely manage to allow himself half a pint every day," said he. "If Lance were intent on his own gratification, I dare say he would," answered Aunt Clem. "He and Annis might be comfortable in housekeeping matters on three hundred a year." "Remarkably so," was Aunt Clem's response. "But the worst of it is, there are other expenses, and plenty of them. Rent, taxes, insurance, clothes, wages, doctors, omnibuses, books, newspapers, and wear and tear of linen and furniture, besides church and charity, for Lance and his wife have nothing of the heathen about them. None of these items come under the head of eatables and drinkables, but all have to be provided for out of the three hundred a year. What's your butcher's bill annually ?" abruptly asked Aunt Clem. "Ninety-four pounds this year," said the Captain. Aunt Clem groaned. "That comes of having two dinners." "How do you mean? We only eat one dinner a day." "Two dinners," repeated Aunt Clem; "one for you, and another for the servants. They ought to dine after you." "But the servants must dine," said Mrs. Courteney. "It can not signify, as to cost, whether they dine early or late." "It signifes every thing, and by having two dinners the meat bill gets almost doubled. What are your servants having for dinner to-day ?" "To-day-oh! they have a shoulder of mutton." "And what shall you have?" "We are going to have some minced veal and a fowl." "Minced veal! the most unprofitable dish any body can put upon their table. You may eat an unlimited quantity. Three pounds, solid weight, would be nothing to a man, and he'd be hungry after it. But that's not my present argument. of mutton would have served you all; your table first and theirs afterwards, and there'd be one expense. And the servants can not have their fling over the meat so uncontrolled; less comes into the house; less remains cold; and cold meat does not go so far as hot, and when hashed and minced it gets half wasted." "Our servants won't dine on cold meat above twice a week, I know that," said Mrs. Courteney. "But as to their dining after us, they would say they could not wait: they would leave first." "Then they should leave-and with great pleasure, I should say," cried Aunt Clem. "It is of no consequence what time people dine, provided they have the regular hour; their appetite soon accustoms itself to it. You might dine at five, instead of your fashionable hour of six, and they after you, Annis's servants do, and she gets no grumbling." "Well," said the Captain, carelessly, "we have rubbed on somehow, with all our mismanagement, and we must contrive to rub on still. Perhaps we shall give up our summer excursion this year, and that will be a saving. I am going down to the club for an hour. I shall find you here on my return, Aunt Clem: you'll stop and help us out with the minced veal." 66 "What a barbarous picture you do draw of domestic economy, Aunt Clem!" exclaimed Augusta, as her husband quitted the room. Nine-penny lace, and common home-made lawn shirts for babies, and all the house dining off one joint, and calling minced veal unprofitable! Your notions are not suitable to us; to the Captain." 66 Child," ," answered Aunt Clem, "I am only thinking what is suitable to your pockets. With five hundred a year, you ought to be able to afford liberal housekeeping and expenditure; but it appears you have so many large expenses, that the house must, or ought, of necessity, to suffer. Your husband hinted at debt: and indeed I don't see how he can have kept out of it." "We are very much in debt; though how much he will not tell me; he says it is enough for him to be worried over it, without my being so." "Then why don't you curtail your expenditure, Augusta ?" "Curtail where? There is not one of the servants we could possibly do without and I'm sure I try all I can to impress saving in the kitchen," "There has been one fault throughout, Augusta. You began on the wrong scale: it is very easy to increase a scale of expenditure, but remarkably difficult to lessen it. The common mistake in marrying is, that people begin by living up to their income." "After all, aunt, if I could curtail in petty domestic trifles, it would be of little service. It is the large outlays that have hurt us our going out of town, and our visiting, and my husband's private expenses. He can not give up these expenses, unless he gives up his friends. Fancy Captain Courteney being obliged to relinquish his club! It's not to be thought of. We must rub on, as he says, somehow or other." "He does not seem to be rubbing on to his club now," said Aunt Clem, who was at the window. "He is standing to talk." "And what queer-looking men he has got hold of!" uttered Augusta, following her. "Shabby coats and greasy hats. He is coming back, and they with him. What can they want?" Aunt Clem drew in her lips ominously, but she said nothing. Mrs. Courteney was only surprised, for the men had entered with her husband. She opened the room-door, and saw the Captain advancing to her with a white face. "My dear Augusta-don't be alarmed, or-or-put out: Aunt Clem can tell you there's no occasion, for these trifles happen every day: but-I-am-arrested." "Arrested!" shrieked Augusta, flying to cling to his arm. "Will they drag you off to prison ?" "For to-day I fear they must, but " "An't no fear about it, sir," interposed one of the men, "it's certain. As well out with the truth, sir, to the lady, it answers best with 'em." "You'll stop here, and take care of her, Aunt Clem," said the crest-fallen Captain, as Augusta burst into sobs; "don't let her grieve. I dare say I shall get it all settled and be at home to-morrow." "This comes of such folks as you rushing headlong into marriage!" tartly exclaimed Aunt Clem. From Titan. PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF THE SIEGE OF LUCKNOW.* THE BEGINNING OF THE SIEGE. THE siege had fairly begun, and in the midst of plenty (for we were rich in luxuries the first days) we suffered the inconvenience of not being able to use them. Deprat's house, near the Cawnpore battery, was swarming with menthe Europeans firing wherever they saw * A Personal Narrative of the Siege of Lucknow, from its Commencement to its Relief by Sir Colin Campbell. By L. E. Ruutz Rees, one of the Sur viving Defenders. Small 8vo. 380 pp. London: Longman & Co. 1858. an object moving, or suspected it to be moving; and the Sikhs, who behaved so shamefully at Chinhutt, sulkily sitting down, doing nothing, or sneering at our efforts. I oftentimes felt a great inclination to pitch into the rascals, but to do so would have been bad policy. Deprat, with his usual generosity, gave away saucissons aux truffes, hermetically sealed provisions, cigars, and wine, and brandy, to whoever wanted any. Many took away large supplies of provisions, etc., and only signed, or did not sign at all, for what they took away. The consequence was, that poor Deprat had soon nothing |