Byron, coarse in thought, word, and deed, in spite of gentle blood and genius, called miserliness "the amiable vice of gentlemen."

Like some other sayings intended to be severely sarcastic, it sets us to searching for the grain of serious truth buried in the bushel of chaff. Economy at its extreme is an honester virtue than the extreme of extravagance, and more humane. It would be a curious study to trace the crooked, unlikely ways by which the eternal principle enunciated by Him whose were, and are, all things that were ever made - "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be wasted" - has been reversed in general belief and practice. In all the universe of God not one atom is squandered. The decay of to-day feeds the growth of to-morrow ; the many littles are wrought, each in its way, time, and place, into the mighty whole.

Coming down to human enterprises where public interests are involved, we commend the wise economy that looks narrowly after minute expenditures. No contempt mingles with the admiration with which we read that the sweepings of the mint are treasured and appraised, the clothing and shoes of operatives dusted before they leave the rooms in which the coin is filed and burnished."

"The management of the concern is faultless," said one of a corporation that counts its gains by the million. "Not a postage stamp is wasted."

It is only when we descend to individual action that lavish-ness becomes fine and frugality mean. He who manipulates hundreds of thousands of dollars may be scrupulous in the matter of wasted pennies. He who counts his earnings by units, rises in the estimation of his fellows when he trumpets the boast that "he may be poor, but he won't be mean ! "

I heard, the other day, a young fellow who has his fortune to make, read aloud to a circle an anecdote of the Dowager-Empress of Germany, when she was Crown Princess, illustrative, said the paper that gave it, of hereditary parsimony, her mother, the Queen of England, being cited as " the stingiest old lady in her realm."The story set forth that the princess, soon after she took possession of her own palace, noted, one day, that a roast chicken which had been taken off the royal table untouched had not reappeared at any subsequent meal, and inquired what had become of it. It was represented to her that all the whole "leftovers " were among the perquisites of the butler-in-chief.

" By whose order? "demanded the royal housewife.

"By the custom of immemorial age," was the reply.

"It should be discontinued," said the princess. " If his salary is insufficient, let him report the fact. He has no right to meddle with what does not belong to him."

The outcry from the audience was unanimous, and renewed when an elderly woman asked, quietly, "What is a perquisite? "

Webster, when consulted, gave: "An allowance paid in money or things beyond the ordinary salary or fixed wages, for services rendered."

"Then," proceeded the protestant, "unless the princess to whom the fowl belonged by right of purchase agreed to allow him the left-over, it was not a perquisite. What was it, then ? Her property, or his ? If he did not buy it, and it was not given to him - didn't he steal it ? "

The plain talk brought out the sentiment of the party. It was mean, it was niggardly, it was vulgar in a woman of wealth and rank to stoop to such a petty economy ! It argued a small soul and a grasping disposition.

My old friend spoke but twice, in answer, and with no haste of self-vindication.

Once she said, "It is not the value, but the fact of the saving that makes it right and a duty."

And again, " Economy and elegance are compatible. Wanton waste is always vulgar."

One at least, of those who listened, will not forget the brace of apothegms. There was arrant vulgarity in Byron's and Shelley's manufacture of toy-skiffs out of five-pound notes, and pretension as tawdry in the practice imputed to an American defaulter, by a witness in court, who testified that he was "a free-handed gentleman, and would give a five-dollar tip to a restaurant-waiter where most men would give a quarter." The most ignoble trait attributed to a distinguished divine, now deceased, was that he never knew the worth of money - or how to take care of it - yet the admirers who cite the amiable peculiarity seem never to suspect that the admission belittles their idol.

Another clergyman, almost as eminent in his generation, on one occasion digressed from the main matter of a lecture to amuse an audience by ridicule of poor Richard's "A penny saved is a penny got," and the alliterative proverb, "Wilful waste makes woful want." There were people present whose laughter would have been more whole-hearted had he not been in debt to them for dollars they were not likely ever to get or save; and others who could not smile for very contempt of a man who borrowed money with a laugh to squander with both hands upon pet luxuries and pet charities (?).

Judicious economy is - many besides my elderly friend being witnesses - altogether compatible with elegance. It is significant that those who have for years had wealth and the refinements of daily living which wealth commands, are more apt to spend money sensibly, and to take care of their costly possessions, than the nouveaux riches.

"She cannot see a thing without wanting to buy it," said a shrewd woman of a fellow-traveller in the Old World. "I know nothing of her antecedents, but I venture the assertion that she has not always been used to having plenty of money to spend."

The inference was severe,-but just, and of wide application. The solution of the terrible problem of broken china, and wasted provisions in pantry and kitchen, lies, for the most part, just here. She who has eaten from wooden platters and drunk from stone mugs until she crossed the sea to draw high wages for underdone labor, will handle old Indian china and cut-glass as she used platter and mug, and, poor fool ! so far imitates our shoddy dame, as to imagine that she proves her "quality" by such brutish indifference to the worth of what she abuses.

Write it down, young housewife, as an adage that will endure any degree of strain, that people who have been accustomed to have and use the best of everything, take the best care of the same. Walter Raleigh had spent a month's income upon the first handsome cloak he ever owned, yet scrupled not to throw it down to bridge the puddle for the feet of his dainty queen. A member of the ancien regime who had had fine cloaks enough to know how to rate them aright, would have looked about for a board or a big stone, and proved his breeding by his prudence.

"Maggie ! " exclaimed a housekeeper, rescuing six large potatoes from the parings the cook was about to cast into the swill-pail - " you surely are not going to throw these away ? "

"An' why not, mum? There's four barrels full of 'em in the cellar! "

No need of further proof that Maggie had not been bred to the sight of potatoes by the barrelful. For like reason, she thinks it "mane to save drippin' when there's lashin's o' butter in the pantry," and burns the bread-crusts she "hasn't the face to offer" to the beggar at your gate. The "dhrop o' crame" left in the jug after your breakfast, the scarcely cut butter-ball from the "individual" plate; the spoonful of potato in one dish, the cupful of tomato in another, and all the gravy and soup left from the family and kitchen tables, go into what should figure as the vulgar housewife's coat-of-arms—the garbage-pail.

If it were only such as Maggie and her compeers who confound wastefulness and generosity, thrift and meanness, the pity and the shame would be so much the less that we might hope to lift the stigma of undignified prodigality from American households. Some mistresses are weak enough to stand in awe of the tribe of locusts who ravage the home-tract. A woman who would seem, judging from my stand-point, to have sense enough to make her own ground, and strength enough to hold it, confided to me that she dared not enforce economy in her kitchen lest she should lose the respect of her servants.

"That class has an overweening reverence for riches," she represented. "Were I to look after candle-ends and soup-stock, they would set me down as poverty-stricken, and esteem my authority accordingly. They have their own code of laws, and enforce it. For instance, we had an unusually large turkey for dinner, the other day. Our family is small, and when it was carried out after its second appearance upon our table, so much of the fowl remained that I meditated a dish of scalloped turkey for lunch the next day. It was Friday, and I knew none would be eaten in the kitchen. Next morning, I asked for the remnant, and was told that it had been thrown away. Expostulating upon the extravagance, I was met with, ' It's the rule in the best families, mem, that a dish isn't to be called for after the second sending in to the family's table.' The price of vigilance on the part of our native housewives is eternal warfare and incessant change. Does it pay ? "

I replied with a bit of serpent-like wisdom learned of and for myself, years ago, that may strengthen other weak sisters, and be a stepping-stone to the right comprehension of the true dignity of economy. Maggie is not so simple as you might think. She has a reserve of shrewdness which leads her to respect rich people who respect riches. Once give her to understand that you have money and to spare - but that you do not mean to spare it; that you value it as highly as she can, therefore are determined to save it when you can. She may despise the poor - I never saw one of her kind who did not - but she holds in honor her who has, but withholds that she may have the more.

Catch her with this guile, if you will, but put your better-taught, better-purposed self to school in the practical lore outlined by our elderly mentor :

"Economy and elegance are compatible. Wanton waste is always vulgar."                                                             M. H.