'I assure you,
madame, it's the same price, the gentleman did not beat me down a mite.'
I returned to my room where I found my husband looking as foolish as--"

She hesitates and then resumes: "As a miller just made a bishop.
'I understand, love, now, that I shall never be anything more than
_somewhat like_ Madame de Fischtaminel.' 'You refer to her neckerchief,
I suppose: well, I _did_ give it to her,--it was for her birthday. You
see, we were formerly--' 'Ah, you were formerly more intimate than you
are now!' Without replying to this, he added, '_But it's altogether
moral._'

"He took his hat and went out, leaving me with this fine declaration
of the Rights of Man. He did not return 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