ets-doux into the
amorous and intelligent hand of his fair mistress.

A correspondence is a variable as Proteus. There are sympathetic inks.
A young celibate has told us in confidence that he has written a
letter on the fly-leaf of a new book, which, when the husband asked
for it of the bookseller, reached the hands of his mistress, who had
been prepared the evening before for this charming article.

A woman in love, who fears her husband's jealousy, will write and read
billets-doux during the time consecrated to those mysterious
occupations during which the most tyrannical husband must leave her
alone.

Moreover, all lovers have the art of arranging a special code of
signals, whose arbitrary import it is difficult to understand. At a
ball, a flower placed in some odd way in the hair; at the theatre, a
pocket handkerchief unfolded on the front of the box; rubbing the
nose, wearing a belt of a particular color, putting the hat on one
side, wearing one dress oftener than another, singing a certain song
in a concert or touching certain notes on the piano; fixing the eyes
on a point agreed; everything, in fact, from the hurdy-gurdy which
passes your windows and goes away if you open the shutter, to the
newspaper announcement of a horse for sale--all may be reckoned as
correspondence.

How many times, in short, will a wife craftily ask her husband to do
such and such commission for her, to go to such and such a shop or
house, having previously informed her lover that your presence at such
or such a place means yes or no?

On this point the professor acknowledges with shame that there is no
possible means of preventing correspondence between lovers. But a
little machiavelism on the part of the husband will be much more
likely to remedy the difficulty than any coercive measures.

An agreement, which should be kept sacred between married people, is
their solemn oath that they will respect each other's sealed letters.
Clever is the husband who makes this pledge on his wedding-day and is
able to keep it conscientiously.

In giving your wife unrestrained liberty to write and to receive
letters, you will be enabled to discern the moment she begins to
correspond with a lover.

But suppose your wife distrusts you and covers with impenetrable
clouds the means she takes to conceal from you her correspondence. Is
it not then time to display that intellectual power with which we
armed you in our Meditation entitled _Of the Cus