Madame M— is very ill. I pray for her recovery, because Charlotte
shares my sufferings. I see her occasionally at my friend's house,
and to-day she has told me the strangest circumstance. Old M— is a
covetous, miserly fellow, who has long worried and annoyed the poor
lady sadly; but she has borne her afflictions patiently. A few days
ago, when the physician informed us that her recovery was hopeless, she
sent for her husband (Charlotte was present), and addressed him thus:
"I have something to confess, which, after my decease, may occasion
trouble and confusion. I have hitherto conducted your household as
frugally and economically as possible, but you must pardon me for
having defrauded you for thirty years. At the commencement of our
married life, you allowed a small sum for the wants of the kitchen, and
the other household expenses. When our establishment increased and our
property grew larger, I could not persuade you to increase the weekly
allowance in proportion: in short, you know, that, when our wants were
greatest, you required me to supply everything with seven florins a
week. I took the money from you without an observation, but made up
the weekly deficiency from the money-chest; as nobody would suspect
your wife of robbing the household bank. But I have wasted nothing,
and should have been content to meet my eternal Judge without this
confession, if she, upon whom the management of your establishment
will devolve after my decease, would be free from embarrassment upon
your insisting that the allowance made to me, your former wife, was
sufficient."
I talked with Charlotte of the inconceivable manner in which men allow
themselves to be blinded; how any one could avoid suspecting some
deception, when seven florins only were allowed to defray expenses
twice as great. But I have myself known people who believed, without
any visible astonishment, that their house possessed the prophet's
never-failing cruse of oil.