st to enliven their married life, and one
dictated by the purest intentions; while on Adolphe's part, it is a
piece of cruelty worthy a Carib, a disregard of his wife's heart, and a
deliberate plan to give her pain. But that is nothing.

"So you are really in love with Madame de Fischtaminel?" Caroline asks.
"What is there so seductive in the mind or the manners of the spider?"

"Why, Caroline--"

"Oh, don't undertake to deny your eccentric taste," she returns,
checking a negation on Adolphe's lips. "I have long seen that you prefer
that Maypole [Madame de Fischtaminel is thin] to me. Very well! go on;
you will soon see the difference."

Do you understand? You cannot suspect Caroline of the slightest
inclination for Monsieur Deschars, a low, fat, red-faced man, formerly
a notary, while you are in love with Madame de Fischtaminel! Then
Caroline, the Caroline whose simplicity caused you such agony, Caroline
who has become familiar with society, Caroline becomes acute and witty:
you have two gadflies instead of one.

The next day she asks you, with a charming air of interest, "How are you
coming on with Madame de Fischtaminel?"

When you go out, she says: "Go and drink something calming, my dear."
For, in their anger with a rival, all women, duchesses even, will use
invectives, and even venture into the domain of Billingsgate; they make
an offensive weapon of anything and everything.

To try to convince Caroline that she is mistaken and that you are
indifferent to Madame de Fischtaminel, would cost you dear. This is a
blunder that no sensible man commits; he would lose his power and spike
his own guns.

Oh! Adolphe, you have arrived unfortunately at that season so
ingeniously called the _Indian Summer of Marriage_.

You must now--pleasing task!--win your wife, your Caroline, over again,
seize her by the waist again, and become the best of husbands by trying
to guess at things to please her, so as to act according to her
whims instead of according to your will. This is the whole question
henceforth.

HARD LABOR.

Let us admit this, which, in our opinion, is a truism made as good as
new:

Axiom.--Most men have some of the wit required by a difficult position,
when they have not the whole of it.

As for those husbands who are not up to their situation, it is
impossible to consider their case here: without any struggle whatever
they simply enter the numerous class of the _Resigned_.

Adolphe says t