, will begin by presenting her husband with sundry little princes
and princesses; and there is no rampart against illicit affection like
your row of little cradles.

In five or six years, when she might have leisure for evil thoughts,
she will be bound hand and foot by the exigencies of society. You
shall have a specimen of the mode in which she spends her days during
the winter season. Her morning is devoted to dressing, breakfasting,
her children, and her husband. From one to three she returns the
visits she has received, in the exact form in which they were paid to
her. The first act of politeness is to go and see your acquaintance;
the second, to leave your card in person; the third, to send the same
bit of pasteboard by a servant _ad hoc_. At three, all the world
drives to the Villa Borghese, where there is a general salutation of
acquaintances with the tips of the fingers. At four, up the Pincio. At
five, it files backwards and forwards along the Corso. Everybody who
is anybody is condemned to this triple promenade. If a single
woman--who is anybody--were to absent herself, it would be inferred,
as a matter of course, that she was ill, and a general inquiry as to
the nature of her complaint would be instituted.

At close of day all go home. After dinner another toilette, and out
for the evening. Every house has its particular reception-night. And a
pure and simple reception indeed it is, without play, without music,
without conversation; a mere interchange of bows and curtsies, and
cold commonplaces. At rare intervals a ball breaks the ice, and shakes
off the _ennui_ generated by this system. Poor women! In an existence
at once so busy and so void, there is not even room for friendship.
Two who may have been friends from childhood, brought up in the same
convent, married into the same world, may meet one another daily and
at all hours, and yet may not be able to enjoy ten minutes of intimate
conversation in the whole year. The brightest, the best, is known but
by her name, her title, and her fortune. Judgments are passed on her
beauty, her toilet, and her diamonds, but nobody has the opportunity
or the leisure to penetrate into the depths of her mind. A really
distinguished woman once said to me, "I feel that I become stupid when
I enter these drawing-rooms. Vacancy seizes me at the very threshold."
Another, who had lived in France, regretted, with tears, the absence
of those charming friendships, so cheerful and