I shook my head.

"Too much?" said Brainard.

"I think so."

"Perhaps it is a little high. But you can't get a genteel,
comfortable house, in a good neighbourhood, for any thing less."

As it was my first visit to the young couple, who were but a few
weeks past their honey-moon, I did not feel like questioning the
propriety of my friend's conduct to the serious extent he was about
involving himself; and so evaded replying to this excuse for taking
at least a hundred dollars more rent upon himself than he was
justified in doing by his circumstances, he being simply a clerk,
with a salary of one thousand dollars.

"Rents are high," was my apparently indifferent answer.

"Too high," said he. "A man who wants a pleasant house has to pay
for it. This is my experience."

The subject of conversation changed; I passed an agreeable evening;
at the close of which I left my friend and his lovely young bride in
their comfortable home.

What I had seen and heard during the few hours spent with Brainard
made me fear that he was about committing a too common error. His
ideas of comfort were not in keeping with his circumstances. Some