"Have these the natural flavour?" he inquired.

"O yes,” replied the shopkeeper. "They have been hermetically sealed, after exhausting the air, and are in just the state they were when taken from the plants. I opened a bottle yesterday, and found them delicious."

"What is the price of this bottle?"

"Half-a-crown."

"How better can I surprise and delight Aggy," said Mr. Barnaby to himself, "than by buying her some of these strawberries?"

That question settled the matter, and Mr. Barnaby's purse was soon lighter by another half-crown. The cauliflower and strawberries were then ordered to be sent home, and Mr. Barnaby, feeling very comfortable in mind, proceeded to his office, and entered upon the business of the day. Between that and nightfall, he gave a shilling to a beggar who got drunk on the money, bought half-a-crown's worth of toys for the children, over which they disputed as soon as they received them, and which were all broken up and thrown away in less than twenty-four hours, and ordered home a shilling's worth of buns for tea, and found, on sitting down to supper, that his wife had baked enough cake to last the whole family for three or four days.

So passed the second day of the new year; and when, in the evening, reflection came, and Mr. Barnaby found twentyeight shillings less in his purse than when he went out in the morning, he was even more at a loss than on the day before to account for the deficiency. In attempting to sum up the various expenditures into which he had been led, he could not make out more than twenty-two shillings; and his mind remained totally in the dark as to the balance.

On the third day-but we will not weary the reader by minutely detailing the process by which Mr. Barnaby got rid of his money on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days of the new year. What we have given will furnish a clew to unravel the mystery of his heavy expenses, and show, what he was himself unable to find out, where the

money went. The amount uselessly spent, or that might have been saved without any abridgement of physical or mental comfort, during those six days, was just three pounds, or at the rate of one hundred and fifty-six pounds a-year.

The manner of proceeding during this one week, shows exactly how Mr. Barnaby conducted his affairs. Not a day passed that he did not waste from four or five to twelve shillings in trifles, to gratify a bad habit of desiring to have every little thing he saw, instead of waiting until real wants tugged at his purse-strings.

Mrs. Barnaby's economy was not much better. She, too, had acquired the same habit, and sixpences and shillings dropped daily from her fingers, as if they were of but small

account.

Thus it went on, as it had been going for years; and when the next 31st of December arrived, and Mr. Barnaby examined his expense account, he found that four hundred pounds had vanished, and that scarcely a vestige of any good it had brought them remained. There had been no additions, except very unimportant ones, to their furniture; no silver plate nor fine jewellery had been purchased; nor had either Mr. or Mrs. Barnaby indulged in any extravagance of dress.

"Where does the money go?" again asked Mr. Barnaby, in a kind of despairing tone.

“I am sure I cannot tell," sadly replied his wife. “It seems impossible that we could have spent so much. What is there to show for it? Nothing !"

"Nothing at all! That makes the great mystery. Four hundred pounds!"

While they yet conversed, their neighbours, the Malcoms, dropped in to sit an hour. No very long time passed before the subject uppermost in the minds of the Barnabys showed itself.

"How is it," said Mr. Barnaby, "that you are able to live on so much less in the year than we can, and yet appear to spend more ?"

Mrs. Malcolm smiled, and said that she was not aware that such was really the case.

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But I know that it is so," returned Mr. Barnaby. "You do not spend as much as we do, by at least a hundred and fifty pounds."

Probably you put our expenses considerably below what they really are."

"No, I apprehend not. I suppose it costs you from two hundred and forty to two hundred and fifty pounds a-year." "Yes. That is pretty near the mark."

"I should not like to say how much it really does cost us; but I can assure you it is far beyond that. As to where the money goes, I am entirely in the dark. We have nothing to show for it. I wish you would impart to us your system of economy," said Mr. Barnaby, smiling. "If I could get through the year for three hundred pounds, I would be perfectly satisfied."

"I have no particular system," replied Mr. Malcom, "unless you call taking care of the little leaks in the cash a system. When a boy, I lived with a shrewd old farmer in the country, who belonged to the 'save-your-pennies-and-thepounds-will-take-care-of-themselves' school. One autumn, in putting up cider, he trusted to rather a rickety-looking barrel, which showed a disposition to leak. 'I think it will do,' he said, thoughtfully eyeing the barrel after the cider had been poured into it, and noticing that in two or three places small streams were oozing forth. The barrel is a little loose, but it will soon swell.' And so the barrel was placed in the dark cellar with two or three others, for the winter's supply. Two barrels were tapped one after another, and they yielded the full amount of liquor that had been committed to their charge. But on coming to the third barrel, and taking hold of it to bring it forward to a better position, it was found to be empty. Aha!' said the old farmer, 'I see how it is. I thought that leak of no consequence, but it has wasted the whole barrel of cider. There's a lesson for you, John,' he added, turning to me. Take care of the little leaks in your pocket, when you grow up

and have money to spend, for it is them that run away with most men's property. I understood him as fully as if he had read me a homily of an hour long. All useless expenditures I now call leaks, and stop them up immediately."

"No doubt we spend a great many shillings that might be saved in the year," said Mr. Barnaby; "but I cannot conceive how all the leaks in our pockets could let out a hundred pounds in twelve months."

"It is an easy matter for us to let a hundred pounds leak out, and yet scarcely be aware of the daily waste," replied Mr. Malcom. "A single crown spent every day, that might be saved, gives three hundred pounds in a year.”

"True. But a man could hardly let that much leak away without observing it."

"It is very possible. Suppose you add on, daily, to each of your three meals, a shilling more than is necessary—and this may be done so easily as scarcely to be noticed-how much do you think it would be in a year? Why, the important sum of full fifty-four pounds."

"Is it possible?" Mr. Barnaby looked surprised. "Even so."

"In the matter of desserts alone," said Mrs. Malcolm, coming in with a remark, "which rather injures than conduces to health, half-a-crown a-day, in a family as large as yours, may be easily spent."

"Don't you have a dessert after dinner?" inquired Mrs. Barnaby, in a tone of surprise.

"Not every day," answered Mrs. Malcom.

"I don't believe Mr. Barnaby would think that he had dined, if he had not a dessert on the table."

"Perhaps not," replied Mr. Barnaby; "for then my first course would digest so easily that it would be hard to imagine that I had eaten anything. The fact is, now that I reflect upon it, these desserts are to my stomach as the extra pound that broke the camel's back. I do not believe I would have a dyspeptic symptom, if I did not touch puddings, pics, sweetmeats, nuts, and raisins, blanc-manges, and a hundred and one other things that my good wife prepares

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for our gratification, and which I eat after my appetite has been satiated on plain and more substantial food."

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Barnaby. "And so, after all, these are the thanks I am to receive for my trouble. Assuredly if it was not for you, I would not trouble myself every day about a dessert for dinner."

"And at a cost of upwards of thirty pounds a-year," returned Mr. Barnaby, good-humouredly. "I begin to see a little of the way in which the money goes."

"There are so many ways in which we are obliged to spend money," said Mr. Malcom, "that unless we are watchful, a little will leak out at a dozen points every day, and show, in the end, although we remain all unconscious of the waste that is going on, an alarming deficiency. When I first entered upon life, I saw how this was in my own case. Sixpences, shillings, and even half-crowns, did not seem of much importance; though of fives, tens, and twenties, I was very careful. The consequence was, that the small change kept constantly running away; and, in the end, the fives, tens, and twenties had mysteriously disappeared. I saw that this would not do, and reformed the system. I took care of the small sums, and soon found that I always had large sums to spend for things actually needful, and had really more satisfaction in what I obtained with my money than I had before."

“But it is so hard,” said Mrs. Barnaby, "to be careful of the sixpences, without growing mean and penurious, and even seeking to save at the expense of others' just rights."

"Perhaps it is," replied Mrs. Malcom. "But this consequence need not follow. All we have to do is, to deny ourselves the indulgence of a weak desire to spend money for little articles that we could do without and not abridge our comfort in the least, and we will find enough left in our purses to remove us from the temptation to be unjust to others."

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Taking care of the pennies, then, and leaving the pounds to take care of themselves, is your system," remarked Mr. Barnaby.