and came home late at night. I
remained in my chamber and wept like a Magdalen, in the
chimney-corner. You may laugh at me, if you will," she adds, looking
at me, "but I shed tears over my youthful illusions, and I wept, too,
for spite, at having been taken for a dupe. I remembered the
dressmaker's smile! Ah, that smile reminded me of the smiles of a
number of women, who laughed at seeing me so innocent and unsuspecting
at Madame de Fischtaminel's! I wept sincerely. Until now I had a right
to give my husband credit for many things which he did not possess, but
in the existence of which young married women pertinaciously believe.

"How many great troubles are included in this petty one! You men are a
vulgar set. There is not a woman who does not carry her delicacy so
far as to embroider her past life with the most delightful fibs, while
you--but I have had my revenge."

"Madame," I say, "you are giving this young lady too much
information."

"True," she returns, "I will tell you the sequel some other time."

"Thus, you see, mademoiselle," I say, "you imagine you are buying a
neckerchief and you find a _petty trouble_ round your neck: if you get
it given to you--"

"It's a _great_ trouble," retorts the woman of distinction. "Let us
stop here."

The moral of this fable is that you must wear your neckerchief without
thinking too much about it. The ancient prophets called this world,
even in their time, a valley of woe. Now, at that period, the
Orientals had, with the permission of the constituted authorities, a
swarm of comely slaves, besides their wives! What shall we call the
valley of the Seine between Calvary and Charenton, where the law
allows but one lawful wife.

THE UNIVERSAL AMADIS.

You will understand at once that I began to gnaw the head of my cane,
to consult the ceiling, to gaze at the fire, to examine Caroline's
foot, and I thus held out till the marriageable young lady was gone.

"You must excuse me," I said, "if I have remained behind, perhaps in
spite of you: but your vengeance would lose by being recounted by and
by, and if it constituted a petty trouble for your husband, I have the
greatest interest in hearing it, and you shall know why."

"Ah," she returned, "that expression, '_it's altogether moral,_' which
he gave as an excuse, shocked me to the last degree. It was a great
consolation, truly, to me, to know that I held the place, in his
household, of a piece o