follows that they have each one of the numbers of hairs which form
the series from one to 200,000; for if it were supposed that there
were two among these 200,000 who had the same number of hairs, I
should have gained my wager. Supposing, then, that these 200,000
inhabitants have all a different number of hairs, if I add a single
inhabitant who has hairs, and who has not more than 200,000, it
necessarily follows that this number of hairs, whatever it may be,
will be contained in the series from one to 200,000, and consequently
will be equal to the number of hairs on one of the previous 200,000
inhabitants. Now as, instead of one inhabitant more than 200,000,
there an nearly 800,000 inhabitants in Paris, you see clearly that
there must be many heads which have an equal number of hairs, though
I have not counted them. Still Mme. de Longueville could never
comprehend that this equality of hairs could be demonstrated, and
always maintained that the only way of proving it was to count them."

Surely, the meet ardent admirer of feminine shallowness must have felt
some irritation when he found himself arrested by this dead wall of
stupidity, and have turned with relief to the larger intelligence of
Madame de Sable, who was not the less graceful, delicate, and feminine
because she could follow a train of reasoning, or interest herself in a
question of science. In this combination consisted her pre-eminent
charm: she was not a genius, not a heroine, but a woman whom men could
more than love--whom they could make their friend, confidante, and
counsellor; the sharer, not of their joys and sorrows only, but of their
ideas and aims.

Such was Madame de Sable, whose name is, perhaps, new to some of our
readers, so far does it lie from the surface of literature and history.
We have seen, too, that she was only one among a crowd--one in a
firmament of feminine stars which, when once the biographical telescope
is turned upon them, appear scarcely less remarkable and interesting.
Now, if the reader recollects what was the position and average
intellectual character of women in the high society of England during the
reigns of James the First and the two Charleses--the period through which
Madame de Sable's career extends--we think he will admit our position as
to the early superiority of womanly development in France, and this fact,
with its causes, has not merely an histori