'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am obliged to put on
black mittens on occasions when I know other girls will have long white
kid gloves.' I must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens;
they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the pinch, if it be
one, experienced by the wearer, is shared by her ungloved friends. The
same thing may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so late in
the season for economical reasons, and so late in the day at all times:
the pinch is felt as much by the visitors as by the members of the
household. These things, however, are mere nips, and may be placed in
the same category with the hardships complained of by my friend
Quiverfull's second boy. 'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for
me,' he says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's clothes' (Bob
being his elder brother), 'which have been papa's first; however, I am
in great hopes that I am out-growing Bob.'

A much more severe example of the pinch of poverty than these is to be
found in railway travelling; no lady of any sense or spirit objects to
travel by the second, or even the third class, if her means do not
justify her going by the first. But when she meets with richer friends
upon the platform, and parts with them to journey in the same
compartment with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as though,
when the guard slams the door of the carriage with the vehemence
proportioned to its humble rank, her tender hand had been crushed in it.
Of course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic opinions,
such as almost no woman of birth and breeding possesses, not to feel
_that_ pinch. Her knowledge that it is also hard upon the man-servant,
who has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped over her
shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase her pain.

A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that