Litchfield enquirer., 1870-10-27
TAKING HIM AT HIS WORD.
BY MARION KIRKLAND.


 ture in the wisdom of my maidenly coun- sels, said Miss Salome Garvay. energeti caily, distracting her brothers attention coffee-urn When l marry--as l am not en passant-I mean to have marriage con tract and private purse.'
 Convenient things, both of them, when one has scoundrelly fortune hunter for a husband observed MT. Garvay, driIy. Al roost Where the law of love and mutual that of seif-interest, the need of your pro- tective policy is not so obvious
 Mutual dependence! How I hate the cant! Why cant you be honest, and talk of despotism and licensed beggary? That is the shape the contract assumes to me, ,,:- Because I try to talk common sense and am not addicted to higher law ranting. responded the gentleman, annoyed by his sisters warmth. Because I Louor my manhood and my wife too sincerely to ac cept the terms you suggest. What has stirred up your righteous indignation anew upon the subject of woman's wrongs?
 The two never quarrelled. They were
 
 stood sthe others pecaliarities of temper and speech. Saiome laughed at the ques- tion. .... .4
 Thank you for the distinction you draw between an honest desire to right the wronged and the unseemly greed for rights we know not what to do with If we had them. This discrimination is one of the opposite sex is doubly delightful because it Ic Ac to yesterday, as you know, with Annette Per- ry. Early in the forenoon, a bill was brought in from her dressmaker. It was the amount was for making the little girls dresses, but Annette looked troubled and alarmed at the sight of it.
 (" have been dreading this for three weeks, she said. I undergo such ago nies, spring and fall, in the anticipation of showing my bills to James, and in the shame and pain of the act itself, that it makes me sick all over. I am certain shall die the earlier on this account
 I was disposed to. laugh at her, but she shed tears at my bantering tone.
 Wait till you are married she insist ed, threatingly. We shall see whether you like to ask your husband for money, any better than do the rest of us poor wives.
 T did not say You shock or You sur prise me! I had heard the same story from too many other married women. Some of them-mercy help them!-had welded to escape life of dependence! But did argue the case somewhat at length, for l saw she needed encouragement.
 What belongs to your husband is yours also-legally and morally,'I I assert ed. Your right to have and to use his earnings is equal to his. And, if the law did not give you this proprietary claim upon his property, you earn your living. The salary he would be obliged to give an other woman as housekeeper, seamstress, governess. and helper-in-general would more than defray your personal expenses. The children, for whom you spend more than for yourself. are his as we'll as yours. So far from finding fault with you for the purchase and manufacture of clothing for them, I doubt not Ia tremendous fb! he is grateful to you for the pains you have taken. He thinks you capital manager, know, for have heard him say so twen- ty times
 I might as we'll have harangued stone. She had no thought for anything but the bill and the necessity of laying it before her lord and master for payment. I broke out at her at last, when I perceived she was not to be cheated of her misery.
 You are aware in your heart, Annet te, that James loves you truly, and desires your happiness; that whatever he may say for habits sake, or for the pleasure of hear ing himself discourse upon economy, he grudges you nothing; that he likes to see you and the little ones we'll dressed. Why regard his empty vaporing about the strin. gency of the money-market, and the diff ference between bread-eaters and bread makers? l have heard other men carry on in this strain, times without number. It IS the cant of their profession. But since James harmless indulgence ill this mascu. line prerogative invariably ends in his foot ing the bills, he IS conscious, all the time are needful and reasonable, why not case. harden youfself-take it all for what it is worth, and forget it as soon as possible?'
 At that, she cried again the more heart. lily.
 "'I have been married fifteen years, she confessed, from the abundance of hel heavy heart, 'and there has never been g time since my honey moon, when requir. ed money for any object, that have not stood before my husband like humbled beggar. It is all one whether want it fol household or peIsonal expenses. There is is no difference in his manner of granting the request. He is generous. and you say truly that he loves me, but lie does not understand-I never saw 8 man that did how disagreeable it is to be compelled te sue for the means with which to ciothe ones self and meet the numberless calls upon the purse of the mistress of fami ly. They all fancy that women are born with bias toward prodigality, and that the best way to keep this down is to make money getting excessively unpleasant te the would-be spendthrifts. We who carr it understand how slowly and through wha labor it comes into our hands, he has tolo me again and again.
 s"The surprised, What! alreadyr when inform him that my exchequer is exhaust ed; the sigh with which he pulls out his pocket book; the ominous compression oi his lips as he counts the bank notes; per haps, worst of all, the cold, curt tone in which he asks, sWill that do fo4 tue pres ent?' in handing me the roll of bills, are SC many lashes upon my shivering self-re lspect. If he wouldn't make an immediate memorandum before my eyes, of the sum he has given me, in the hateful black book he carries in his breast-pocket, I should not feel quite so mean. I brought him nc dowIy-a fuct remember whenever these scenes occur, whether he does or not. l declare to you SalOme have often shrunE