for them. Though without
the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with
perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were
so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders
sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. _Mallem
mehercule cum Platone errare_. When he said "_Si, Siora_," it seemed as
if he were calling the lady by a pet name.

Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I
think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.

The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's
proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than
otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal
free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to
which they carried it.

We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri
to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too
prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz.
Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow
fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor!

Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they
prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If
the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably
supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom--nothing for
the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his
peace--why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely
as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only
desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most
cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered.

That poor Hephaestus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty
piece of workmanship, but--it didn't answer.

In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is _not_ to
be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than
May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes
get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you
must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then,
and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without
the most distant idea of criminality--fencing with wooden foils, where
no blood i