if you do not keep him amused you will fall
into a dismal apathy. Then begins the SPLEEN of love. But a man will
always love the woman who amuses him and keeps him happy. To give
happiness and to receive it are two lines of feminine conduct which are
separated by a gulf."

"Dear mother, I am listening to you, but I don't understand one word you
say."

"If you love Paul to the extent of doing all he asks of you, if you make
your happiness depend on him, all is over with your future life; you
will never be mistress of your home, and the best precepts in the world
will do you no good."

"That is plainer; but I see the rule without knowing how to apply it,"
said Natalie, laughing. "I have the theory; the practice will come."

"My poor Ninie," replied the mother, who dropped an honest tear at the
thought of her daughter's marriage, "things will happen to teach it to
you--And," she continued, after a pause, during which the mother and
daughter held each other closely embraced in the truest sympathy,
"remember this, my Natalie: we all have our destiny as women, just as
men have their vocation as men. A woman is born to be a woman of the
world and a charming hostess, as a man is born to be a general or a
poet. Your vocation is to please. Your education has formed you for
society. In these days women should be educated for the salon as they
once were for the gynoecium. You were not born to be the mother of a
family or the steward of a household. If you have children, I hope
they will not come to spoil your figure on the morrow of your marriage;
nothing is so bourgeois as to have a child at once. If you have them
two or three years after your marriage, well and good; governesses and
tutors will bring them up. YOU are to be the lady, the great lady, who
represents the luxury and the pleasure of the house. But remember
one thing--let your superiority be visible in those things only which
flatter a man's self-love; hide the superiority you must also acquire
over him in great things."

"But you frighten me, mamma," cried Natalie. "How can I remember
all these precepts? How shall I ever manage, I, such a child, and so
heedless, to reflect and calculate before I act?"

"But, my dear little girl, I am telling you to-day that which you must
surely learn later, buying your experience by fatal faults and errors
of conduct which will cause you bitter regrets and embarrass your whole
life."

"But how must I begin?" asked Natalie, a