o be left
alone, so? She cannot support such an existence.

The country house now creates a very peculiar phase; one which deserves
a chapter to itself.

TROUBLE WITHIN TROUBLE.

Axiom.--There are parentheses in worry.

EXAMPLE--A great deal of evil has been said of the stitch in the
side; but it is nothing to the stitch to which we now refer, which the
pleasures of the matrimonial second crop are everlastingly reviving,
like the hammer of a note in the piano. This constitutes an irritant,
which never flourishes except at the period when the young wife's
timidity gives place to that fatal equality of rights which is at once
devastating France and the conjugal relation. Every season has its
peculiar vexation.

Caroline, after a week spent in taking note of her husband's absences,
perceives that he passes seven hours a day away from her. At last,
Adolphe, who comes home as gay as an actor who has been applauded,
observes a slight coating of hoar frost upon Caroline's visage. After
making sure that the coldness of her manner has been observed, Caroline
puts on a counterfeit air of interest,--the well-known expression of
which possesses the gift of making a man inwardly swear,--and says: "You
must have had a good deal of business to-day, dear?"

"Oh, lots!"

"Did you take many cabs?"

"I took seven francs' worth."

"Did you find everybody in?"

"Yes, those with whom I had appointments."

"When did you make appointments with them? The ink in your inkstand is
dried up; it's like glue; I wanted to write, and spent a whole hour
in moistening it, and even then only produced a thick mud fit to mark
bundles with for the East Indies."

Here any and every husband looks suspiciously at his better half.

"It is probable that I wrote them at Paris--"

"What business was it, Adolphe?"

"Why, I thought you knew. Shall I run over the list? First, there's
Chaumontel's affair--"

"I thought Monsieur Chaumontel was in Switzerland--"

"Yes, but he has representatives, a lawyer--"

"Didn't you do anything else but business?" asks Caroline, interrupting
Adolphe.

Here she gives him a direct, piercing look, by which she plunges into
her husband's eyes when he least expects it: a sword in a heart.

"What could I have done? Made a little counterfeit money, run into debt,
or embroidered a sampler?"

"Oh, dear, I don't know. And I can't even guess. I am too dull, you've
told me so a hundred times."

"There you