e; second, while she
is hypocritical, with her "Ah! 'tis Adolphe!" When she exclaims, "It's
only my husband," she no longer deigns to play a part.

Or, if you come home somewhat late--at eleven, or at midnight--you
find her--snoring! Odious symptom!

Or else she puts on her stockings in your presence. Among English
couples, this never happens but once in a lady's married life; the
next day she leaves for the Continent with some captain or other, and
no longer thinks of putting on her stockings at all.

Or else--but let us stop here.

This is intended for the use of mariners and husbands who are
weatherwise.

THE MATRIMONIAL GADFLY.

Very well! In this degree of longitude, not far from a tropical sign
upon the name of which good taste forbids us to make a jest at once
coarse and unworthy of this thoughtful work, a horrible little
annoyance appears, ingeniously called the Matrimonial Gadfly, the most
provoking of all gnats, mosquitoes, blood-suckers, fleas and
scorpions, for no net was ever yet invented that could keep it off.
The gadfly does not immediately sting you; it begins by buzzing in
your ears, and _you do not at first know what it is_.

Thus, apropos of nothing, in the most natural way in the world,
Caroline says: "Madame Deschars had a lovely dress on, yesterday."

"She is a woman of taste," returns Adolphe, though he is far from
thinking so.

"Her husband gave it to her," resumes Caroline, with a shrug of her
shoulders.

"Ah!"

"Yes, a four hundred franc dress! It's the very finest quality of
velvet."

"Four hundred francs!" cries Adolphe, striking the attitude of the
apostle Thomas.

"But then there are two extra breadths and enough for a high waist!"

"Monsieur Deschars does things on a grand scale," replies Adolphe,
taking refuge in a jest.

"All men don't pay such attentions to their wives," says Caroline,
curtly.

"What attentions?"

"Why, Adolphe, thinking of extra breadths and of a waist to make the
dress good again, when it is no longer fit to be worn low in the
neck."

Adolphe says to himself, "Caroline wants a dress."

Poor man!

Some time afterward, Monsieur Deschars furnishes his wife's chamber
anew. Then he has his wife's diamonds set in the prevailing fashion.
Monsieur Deschars never goes out without his wife, and never allows
his wife to go out without offering her his arm.

If you bring Caroline anything, no matter what, it is never equa