me her name or point her out to me?"

"Oh! no; she is an honest woman."

When a student is loved by a waitress, he mentions her name with pride
and takes his friends to lunch at her house. If a young man loves a
woman whose husband is engaged in some trade dealing with articles
of necessity, he will answer, blushingly, "She is the wife of a
haberdasher, of a stationer, of a hatter, of a linen-draper, of a clerk,
etc."

But this confession of love for an inferior which buds and blows in
the midst of packages, loaves of sugar, or flannel waistcoats is always
accompanied with an exaggerated praise of the lady's fortune. The
husband alone is engaged in the business; he is rich; he has fine
furniture. The loved one comes to her lover's house; she wears a
cashmere shawl; she owns a country house, etc.

In short, a young man is never wanting in excellent arguments to prove
that his mistress is very nearly, if not quite, an honest woman. This
distinction originates in the refinement of our manners and has become
as indefinite as the line which separates _bon ton_ from vulgarity. What
then is meant by an honest woman?

On this point the vanity of women, of their lovers, and even that of
their husbands, is so sensitive that we had better here settle upon some
general rules, which are the result of long observation.

Our one million of privileged women represent a multitude who are
eligible for the glorious title of honest women, but by no means all are
elected to it. The principles on which these elections are based may be
found in the following axioms:

APHORISMS.

I.
An honest woman is necessarily a married woman.

II.
An honest woman is under forty years old.

III.
A married woman whose favors are to be paid for is not an honest
woman.

IV.
A married woman who keeps a private carriage is an honest woman.

V.
A woman who does her own cooking is not an honest woman.

VI.
When a man has made enough to yield an income of twenty thousand francs,
his wife is an honest woman, whatever the business in which his fortune
was made.

VII.
A woman who says "letter of change" for letter of exchange, who says
of a man, "He is an elegant gentlema