into that closet
and don't make the least noise."

The husband, caught like a mouse in a trap, concealed himself in the
closet.

"Good-day, my dear!" said the two women, kissing each other.

"Why are you come so early?" asked Emilie.

"Oh! my dear, cannot you guess? I came to have an understanding with
you!"

"What, a duel?"

"Precisely, my dear. I am not like you, not I! I love my husband and
am jealous of him. You! you are beautiful, charming, you have the
right to be a coquette, you can very well make fun of B-----, to whom
your virtue seems to be of little importance. But as you have plenty
of lovers in society, I beg you that you will leave me my husband. He
is always at your house, and he certainly would not come unless you
were the attraction."

"What a very pretty jacket you have on."

"Do you think so? My maid made it."

"Then I shall get Anastasia to take a lesson from Flore--"

"So, then, my dear, I count on your friendship to refrain from
bringing trouble in my house."

"But, my child, I do not know how you can conceive that I should fall
in love with your husband; he is coarse and fat as a deputy of the
centre. He is short and ugly--Ah! I will allow that he is generous,
but that is all you can say for him, and this is a quality which is
all in all only to opera girls; so that you can understand, my dear,
that if I were choosing a lover, as you seem to suppose I am, I
wouldn't choose an old man like your baron. If I have given him any
hopes, if I have received him, it was certainly for the purpose of
amusing myself, and of giving you liberty; for I believed you had a
weakness for young Rostanges."

"I?" exclaimed Louise, "God preserve me from it, my dear; he is the
most intolerable coxcomb in the world. No, I assure you, I love my
husband! You may laugh as you choose; it is true. I know it may seem
ridiculous, but consider, he has made my fortune, he is no miser, and
he is everything to me, for it has been my unhappy lot to be left an
orphan. Now even if I did not love him, I ought to try to preserve his
esteem. Have I a family who will some day give me shelter?"

"Come, my darling, let us speak no more about it," said Emilie,
interrupting her friend, "for it tires me to death."

After a few trifling remarks the baroness left.

"How is this, monsieur?" cried Madame B-----, opening the door of the
closet where the baron was frozen with cold, for this incident took
place in winter; "how is