where closest
friends may be rudely severed, and those whom Heaven hath joined be put
asunder by their own most innocent errors--and the finest spirits run
the heaviest risk. Ah well, if I were the Grand Duke of Gerolstein,
maybe things would be better managed in my dominions.

XIII.

DOMESTIC CRITICISMS.

Hartman has made a first-rate impression here. It would please you to
see this stern ascetic, this despiser of Life and Humanity, with two
toddlers on his lap, and Herbert at his knee, all listening open-mouthed
to tales of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The boy thinks that one
who lives in the woods must be a great hunter, and clamors for bears and
wildcats: Jane, in her usual unfeeling way, insists that I put him up to
this. But though I am a family man--and you could not easily find one
more exemplary--I do not propose to drag the nursery into the cold glare
of public comment, or favor you with a chapter on the Management of
Children.

I would like to know why it is that women are so ready to take up with
any chance stranger who comes along, when they cannot see the true
greatness of their own nearest and dearest. Mabel pronounces Hartman a
perfect gentleman and a safe companion for me; as if it were I, not he,
that needed looking after. Jane seems to regard him as the rock which
withstands the tempest, the oak round which the vine may safely cling,
and that sort of thing. He is a good-looking fellow yet, and he has a
stalwart kind of bearing, adapted to deceive persons who do not know him
as well as I do. They would almost side with him against Clarice--but
not quite: in their hearts, they think her perfect.

One evening we were all together in the parlor. The Princess had gone
somewhere with one of her numerous adorers, whom she had failed to bluff
off as she generally does: the young man was going to cast himself into
the sea, I believe, and I told her she had better let him and be done
with it, but she said he had a widowed mother and several sisters, and
ought to live long enough to leave them comfortably provided for; so I
let her go. I was trying to direct the conversation into improving
channels, but the frivolous female mind is too much for me.

"Mr. Hartman," Jane began, "we rely on you to exercise a good influence
upon Robert. He is so light-minded, and so deceitful."

"Yes," Mabel added; "no one can restrain him but Clarice, and she
cannot spend her whole time upon him, she has so m