uch
as those she used to buy at Paris, of a woman who had rent and taxes to
pay, and whose husband was an elector. Despite the efforts and pledges
of the gate-keeper-gardener, early peas and things at Paris are a month
in advance of those in the country.

From eight in the evening to eleven our couple don't know what to do, on
account of the insipidity of the neighbors, their small ideas, and the
questions of self-love which arise out of the merest trifles.

Monsieur Deschars remarks, with that profound knowledge of figures which
distinguishes the ex-notary, that the cost of going to Paris and back,
added to the interest of the cost of his villa, to the taxes, wages
of the gate-keeper and his wife, are equal to a rent of three thousand
francs a year. He does not see how he, an ex-notary, allowed himself to
be so caught! For he has often drawn up leases of chateaux with parks
and out-houses, for three thousand a year.

It is agreed by everybody in the parlor of Madame Deschars, that a
country house, so far from being a pleasure, is an unmitigated nuisance.

"I don't see how they sell a cabbage for one sou at market, which has
to be watered every day from its birth to the time you eat it," says
Caroline.

"The way to get along in the country," replies a little retired grocer,
"is to stay there, to live there, to become country-folks, and then
everything changes."

On going home, Caroline says to her poor Adolphe, "What an idea that was
of yours, to buy a country house! The best way to do about the country
is to go there on visits to other people."

Adolphe remembers an English proverb, which says, "Don't have a
newspaper or a country seat of your own: there are plenty of idiots who
will have them for you."

"Bah!" returns Adolph, who was enlightened once for all upon women's
logic by the Matrimonial Gadfly, "you are right: but then you know the
baby is in splendid health, here."

Though Adolphe has become prudent, this reply awakens Caroline's
susceptibilities. A mother is very willing to think exclusively of her
child, but she does not want him to be preferred to herself. She is
silent; the next day, she is tired to death of the country. Adolphe
being absent on business, she waits for him from five o'clock to seven,
and goes alone with little Charles to the coach office. She talks for
three-quarters of an hour of her anxieties. She was afraid to go from
the house to the office. Is it proper for a young woman t