in France the dish in question is called
Mushrooms _a l'Italienne, a la provencale, a la bordelaise_. The
mushrooms are minced, fried in oil with a few ingredients whose names
I have forgotten. You add a taste of garlic, I believe--"

Talk about calamities, of petty troubles! This, do you see, is, to a
woman's heart, what the pain of an extracted tooth is to a child of
eight. _Ab uno disce omnes_: which means, "There's one of them: find
the rest in your memory." For we have taken this culinary description
as a prototype of the vexations which afflict loving but indifferently
loved women.

SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE.

A woman full of faith in the man she loves is a romancer's fancy. This
feminine personage no more exists than does a rich dowry. A woman's
confidence glows perhaps for a few moments, at the dawn of love, and
disappears in a trice like a shooting star.

With women who are neither Dutch, nor English, nor Belgian, nor from
any marshy country, love is a pretext for suffering, an employment for
the superabundant powers of their imaginations and their nerves.

Thus the second idea that takes possession of a happy woman, one who
is really loved, is the fear of losing her happiness, for we must do
her the justice to say that her first idea is to enjoy it. All who
possess treasures are in dread of thieves, but they do not, like
women, lend wings and feet to their golden stores.

The little blue flower of perfect felicity is not so common, that the
heaven-blessed man who possesses it, should be simpleton enough to
abandon it.

Axiom.--A woman is never deserted without a reason.

This axiom is written in the heart of hearts of every woman. Hence the
rage of a woman deserted.

Let us not infringe upon the petty troubles of love: we live in a
calculating epoch when women are seldom abandoned, do what they may:
for, of all wives or women, nowadays, the legitimate is the least
expensive. Now, every woman who is loved, has gone through the petty
annoyance of suspicion. This suspicion, whether just or unjust,
engenders a multitude of domestic troubles, and here is the biggest of
all.

Caroline is one day led to notice that her cherished Adolphe leaves
her rather too often upon a matter of business, that eternal
Chaumontel's affair, which never comes to an end.

Axiom.--Every household has its Chaumontel's affair. (See TROUBLE
WITHIN TROUBLE.)

In the first place, a woman no more