I think in general it is well to be frank with one's local merchant. They are more than glad to assist customers in buying the most durable, genuine and substantial goods. Of course if a buyer insists upon a poor article, the merchant's business is to sell it. But when the customer frankly asks for information he is pretty certain to get a truthful reply.

Speaking of buying in quantities, don't forget that in cities such as Washington, Buffalo and Schenectady, where street-car tickets cost five cents apiece or six for a quarter, the frugal person always invests the quarter.

One of the greatest troubles a housewife faces is the servant problem, and it is a problem she must work out for herself according to her physical strength, ability, social standing and temperament. Some women can take a raw country girl and by patient instruction, tact and thoughtful kindness make her into a fairly efficient servant who will stay with the family willingly for years. Such women have no servant problem. Other housewives prefer to hire servants by the hour occasionally and use the rest of their wage allowances for trying some of the many modern labor-saving devices such as the fireless cooker, the vacuum cleaner and the many electrical implements. Each method has its advantage and it is for the individual housewife to decide which best suits her purse, time and energy. Overwork or overeconomy is never thrift.

But whether the mistress has a maid or not she should, as far as she can, standardize her work in the home as her husband does in his office. The household equipment, the tools of her business, should be plentiful and kept in good order. Furniture in the kitchen and elsewhere should be arranged to allow for the greatest amount of cleanliness with the least amount of labor. Bills should be looked over every month systematically to avoid overpayments, and, if possible, the housewife should devise some common-sense scheme of keeping records so that she may profit by her experience and learn each year some new way of cutting off a corner.

Dress might just as well have been mentioned in the chapter on Personal Finance as in this one. But the housewife usually buys all the clothes of the family except those of the menfolk, and often she buys part of their wardrobes. Then, too, it is her duty to impress upon children that they do not need new clothes just because their companions have them. It is the mother's duty to teach her daughter to save something; if the daughter works, to put something by for future years, rather than waste it all on vain show.

My deep personal conviction is that overdress is one of the most serious evils in this country-to-day. Statistics show how large a per cent. of the young women who go wrong take that dismal path because of a desire for silly finery. I know a woman who works in a library who spends every cent she earns on clothes. She is no longer young. She makes no provision for her old age, and appears to care not a whit. Yet her good clothes get her nowhere. They do not make friends. They do not raise her in the estimation of her employers.

A famous but eccentric college professor, noted for his startling half truths, once astounded his class by saying he believed in extravagance of dress. He explained his novel views in this simple fashion: "The lowly and humble working girl who buys a feather worth a week's salary or a gaudy hat, feels elevated and raised among the high and mighty by her showy clothes." Now, of course, any one who has given the subject any real thought or observation knows that the best, most useful and very often the richest people dress quietly and simply. I have often noticed a five-dollars-a-week mailing clerk or a seven-dollars-a-week apprentice stenographer in a great mercantile establishment dressed far beyond her means in gaudy finery, whereas the young woman who held the position of confidential secretary to the president at forty dollars a week was dressed in the quietest possible manner.

But this does not answer the argument of the learned professor. The working girl who spends her entire wages on elaborate clothes does not accomplish anything thereby, because people of influence, leaders in large affairs, employers, members of the class that might help her, are never impressed by extravagant dress. It defeats itself because those whose favor a young person must win are never stupid enough to be fooled by any form of extravagance. They are impressed, of course, by neatness, cleanliness, and by clothes that are suitable and appropriate. Indeed overdressing among salesmen is so common that I have known of numerous instances where a quietly dressed representative made far more impression upon the prospective customer than the vulgarly over-dressed drummer.

"The debutante must have her Paquin gown," says a committee of the Young Women's Christian Association, "for which she, to be sure, is quite able to pay. The daughter of the business or professional man of moderate income feels, in her turn, that her social success depends upon her ability to obtain the best American duplicate. The salaried woman adopts a mode of dressing relatively beyond her means. And as for the girl in the shop, she would be more than human could she withstand the force of the ever present temptation to keep the pace. Who can describe the unhap-piness, the actual distress of mind, the disaster, which too often result from the effort to follow standards set by the thoughtless self-gratification of would-be leaders? In democratic America, where there are no insurmountable class barriers, no woman is protected from the impact of these extravagant ideas. The youngest and the poorest wage-earner is the most helpless."

If you are a clerk, dress as a clerk, if you are a housewife, dress as a housewife. Do not be a factory girl dressed like an opera star or a stenographer dressed like a lady of leisure. Be proud of your occupation and the dress that befits it.

Dress should be appropriate to the season, the locality, the company, the hour, the occasion and above all the station in life.

Before you buy new clothes be sure that what you have can not be made to do. It is wasteful to discard clothing before it is worn out, particularly when you do it for the foolish reason that it is not quite in the very latest style.

Have your clothes as simple as possible. They will wear better and will not become shabby so soon. Remember that dress has a powerful effect upon the wearer. If you are shabby on the outside you may soon come to feel shabby on the inside. If you are efficient, successful and self-respecting, look the part, not by spending much money, but by taking great thought and pains.

Simple clothing does not easily get out of order. It is easy to keep clean and bespeaks the gentleman and gentlewoman. To be beautiful, a dress does not have to be elaborate, in fact it is often more beautiful in its simplicity.

It is important that the really shrewd housewife will lay aside all she can for incidentals. In this day of complicated living often the big obstacle to systematic saving is the "incidentals." They may seem small and of little account for weeks together but there is sure to come a day when Johnny has to have his tonsils removed, when the dentist demands many sittings, and the oculist sends a bill twice as large as you expected; when something goes wrong with the gas stove and the new maid smashes a tray full of dishes. Then is the time for the thrifty housewife to appear proudly before her worried husband with the money she has been saving from many weeks of unused incidentals to meet just this emergency.