save.

That was six very short years ago. When, with three babies, the
bungalow became a trifle small, we built a little country house and
moved farther out. Several people whom we liked best among that
first "exclusive younger set" have moved out too, and formed the
nucleus of a neighborhood group that has wonderful times on incomes
no one of which touches $4000 a year.

Ours is not as much as that yet; but it is enough to leave a wide
and comfortable margin all around our wants. Max has given up his
pipe for cigarettes (unmonogramed), and patronizes a good tailor for
business reasons. But in everything else our substitutions stand:
gardening for golf; picnics for roadhouse dinners; simple food,
simple clothing, simple hospitality, books, a fire, and a game of
chess on winter nights.

We don't even talk about economies any more. We like them.
But--every Christmas there comes to me via the Christmas tree a box
of stockings, and for Max a box of socks--heavy silk. There never is
any card in either box; but I think we'll probably get them till we
die.

The following short confession, signed "Mrs. M.F.E.," was awarded the
first prize by the _American Magazine_ in a contest for articles on "The
Best Thing Experience Has Taught Me":

Forty Years Bartered for What?

A tiny bit of wisdom, but as vital as protoplasm. I know, for I