invincible. There may be a trifle of childishness in it all, you will
admit, but it is a childishness that can not be got rid of.

As a proof of it, the other day, going to St. Thomas's to hear Father
Nicholas, who is one of our shining lights, you experienced totally
different sentiments; a general feeling of discontent and doubt and
nervous irritability at every sentence of the preacher. Your soul did
not soar heavenward with the same unreserved confidence; you left St.
Thomas's with your head hot and your feet cold; and you so far forgot
yourself as to say, as you got into your carriage, that Father Nicholas
was a Gallican devoid of eloquence. Your coachman heard it. And,
finally, on reaching home you thought your drawing-room too small and
your husband growing too fat. Why, I again ask you, this string of
vexatious impressions? If you remember rightly, dear Madame, you wore
for the first time the day before yesterday that horrible little violet
bonnet, which is such a disgusting failure. First pair of breeches, dear
Madame.

Would you like a final example? Observe your husband. Yesterday he went
out in a bad temper--he had breakfasted badly--and lo! in the evening,
at a quarter to seven, he came home from the Chamber joyful and
well-pleased, a smile on his lips, and good-humor in his eye. He kissed
you on the forehead with a certain unconstraint, threw a number of
pamphlets and papers with an easy gesture on the sidetable, sat down to
table, found the soup delicious, and ate joyously. "What is the matter
with my husband?" you asked yourself.... I will explain. Your husband
spoke yesterday for the first time in the building, you know. He
said--the sitting was a noisy one, the Left were threshing out some
infernal questions--he said, during the height of the uproar, and
rapping with his paper-knife on his desk: "But we can not hear!" And as
these words were received on all sides with universal approbation
and cries of "Hear, hear!" he gave his thoughts a more parliamentary
expression by adding: "The voice of the honorable gentleman who
is speaking does not reach us." It was not much certainly, and the
amendment may have been carried all the same, but after all it was a
step; a triumph, to tell the truth, since your husband has from day to
day put off the delivery of his maiden speech. Behold a happy deputy, a
deputy who has just--put on his first pair of breeches.

What matter whether the reason be a serious or a