hat he has but one method of calculating his
position, while husbands have at least a thousand of reckoning theirs.

EXAMPLE: Caroline, your late darling, your late treasure, who is now
merely your humdrum wife, leans much too heavily upon your arm while
walking on the boulevard, or else says it is much more elegant not to
take your arm at all;

Or else she notices men, older or younger as the case may be, dressed
with more or less taste, whereas she formerly saw no one whatever,
though the sidewalk was black with hats and traveled by more boots
than slippers;

Or, when you come home, she says, "It's no one but my husband:"
instead of saying "Ah! 'tis Adolphe!" as she used to say with a
gesture, a look, an accent which caused her admirers to think, "Well,
here's a happy woman at last!" This last exclamation of a woman is
suitable for two eras,--first, while she is sincere; second, while she
is hypocritical, with her "Ah! 'tis Adolphe!" When she exclaims, "It's
only my husband," she no longer deigns to play a part.

Or, if you come home somewhat late--at eleven, or at midnight--you
find her--snoring! Odious symptom!

Or else she puts on her stockings in your presence. Among English
couples, this never happens but once in a lady's married life; the
next day she leaves for the Continent with some captain or other, and
no longer thinks of putting on her stockings at all.

Or else--but let us stop here.

This is intended for the use of mariners and husbands who are
weatherwise.

THE MATRIMONIAL GADFLY.

Very well! In this degree of longitude, not far from a tropical sign
upon the name of which good taste forbids us to make a jest at once
coarse and unworthy of this thoughtful work, a horrible little
annoyance appears, ingeniously called the Matrimonial Gadfly, the most
provoking of all gnats, mosquitoes, blood-suckers, fleas and
scorpions, for no net was ever yet invented that could keep it off.
The gadfly does not immediately sting you; it begins by buzzing in
your ears, and _you do not at first know what it is_.

Thus, apropos of nothing, in the most natural way in the world,
Caroline says: "Madame Deschars had a lovely dress on, yesterday."

"She is a woman of taste," returns Adolphe, though he is far from
thinking so.

"Her husband gave it to her," resumes Caroline, with a shrug of her
shoulders.

"Ah!"

"Yes, a four hundred franc dress! It's the very finest quality of
vel