anguine expect to get ten per cent of their capital
back. You are discouraged.

Caroline has often said to you, "Adolphe, what is the matter? Adolphe,
there is something wrong."

Finally, you acquaint Caroline with the fatal result: she begins by
consoling you.

"One hundred thousand francs lost! We shall have to practice the
strictest economy," you imprudently add.

The jesuitism of woman bursts out at this word "economy." It sets fire
to the magazine.

"Ah! that's what comes of speculating! How is it that _you, ordinarily
so prudent_, could go and risk a hundred thousand francs! _You know I
was against it from the beginning!_ BUT YOU WOULD NOT LISTEN TO ME!"

Upon this, the discussion grows bitter.

You are good for nothing--you have no business capacity; women alone
take clear views of things. You have risked your children's bread,
though she tried to dissuade you from it.--You cannot say it was for
her. Thank God, she has nothing to reproach herself with. A hundred
times a month she alludes to your disaster: "If my husband had not
thrown away his money in such and such a scheme, I could have had this
and that." "The next time you want to go into an affair, perhaps you'll
consult me!" Adolphe is accused and convicted of having foolishly lost
one hundred thousand francs, without an object in view, like a dolt, and
without having consulted his wife. Caroline advises her friends not to
marry. She complains of the incapacity of men who squander the fortunes
of their wives. Caroline is vindictive, she makes herself generally
disagreeable. Pity Adolphe! Lament, ye husbands! O bachelors, rejoice
and be exceeding glad!

MEMORIES AND REGRETS.

After several years of wedded life, your love has become so placid,
that Caroline sometimes tries, in the evening, to wake you up by various
little coquettish phrases. There is about you a certain calmness and
tranquillity which always exasperates a lawful wife. Women see in it a
sort of insolence: they look upon the indifference of happiness as
the fatuity of confidence, for of course they never imagine their
inestimable equalities can be regarded with disdain: their virtue is
therefore enraged at being so cordially trusted in.

In this situation, which is what every couple must come to, and which
both husband and wife must expect, no husband dares confess that the
constant repetition of the same dish has become wearisome; but his
appetite certainly requires the cond