, the engineer, the judge, in short, the
son-in-law, Adolphe, and his family, have seen in Miss Caroline:

I.--Miss Caroline;

II.--The only daughter of your wife and you.

Here, as in the Chamber of Deputies, we are compelled to call for a
division of the house:

1.--As to your wife.

Your wife is to inherit the property of a maternal uncle, a gouty old
fellow whom she humors, nurses, caresses, and muffles up; to say
nothing of her father's fortune. Caroline has always adored her uncle,
--her uncle who trotted her on his knee, her uncle who--her uncle
whom--her uncle, in short,--whose property is estimated at two hundred
thousand.

Further, your wife is well preserved, though her age has been the
subject of mature reflection on the part of your son-in-law's
grandparents and other ancestors. After many skirmishes between the
mothers-in-law, they have at last confided to each other the little
secrets peculiar to women of ripe years.

"How is it with you, my dear madame?"

"I, thank heaven, have passed the period; and you?"

"I really hope I have, too!" says your wife.

"You can marry Caroline," says Adolphe's mother to your future
son-in-law; "Caroline will be the sole heiress of her mother, of her
uncle, and her grandfather."

2.--As to yourself.

You are also the heir of your maternal grandfather, a good old man
whose possessions will surely fall to you, for he has grown imbecile,
and is therefore incapable of making a will.

You are an amiable man, but you have been very dissipated in your
youth. Besides, you are fifty-nine years old, and your head is bald,
resembling a bare knee in the middle of a gray wig.

III.--A dowry of three hundred thousand.

IV.--Caroline's only sister, a little dunce of twelve, a sickly child,
who bids fair to fill an early grave.

V.--Your own fortune, father-in-law (in certain kinds of society they
say _papa father-in-law_) yielding an income of twenty thousand, and
which will soon be increased by an inheritance.

VI.--Your wife's fortune, which will be increased by two inheritances
--from her uncle and her grandfather. In all, thus:

Three inheritances and interest, 750,000
Your fortune, 250,000
Your wife's fortune, 250,000
_________

Total, 1,250,000

which surely cannot take wing!

Such is the autopsy of all those brilliant marriages that