But Edith did not rattle her housekeeping keys, or count the coals, nor did she even go through accounts, or into the kitchen every day.

The secret was simple.

She had a good cook and housekeeper, who managed all these important but tedious details admirably, under her suggestions.

In order to do this Edith had to practise a little fraud on Bruce, a justifiable and quite unselfish one.

She gave the cook and housekeeper a quarter of her dress allowance, in addition to the wages Bruce considered sufficient; because Bruce believed that they could not afford more than a certain amount for a cook, while he admitted that Edith, who had a few hundred pounds a year of her own, might need to spend this on dress.