t a
butterfly's legs with pincers--that we still want a nomenclature for
the chemistry of the kitchen, to enable all the cooks in the world to
produce precisely similar dishes. It would be diplomatically agreed that
French should be the language of the kitchen, as Latin has been adopted
by the scientific for botany and entomology, unless it were desired to
imitate them in that, too, and thus really have kitchen Latin.

"My dear," resumes Adolphe, on seeing the clouded and lengthened face of
his chaste Caroline, "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