alk up and down the room.

"There now, tell me, what will you do?" he repeats after much too
prolonged a silence.

"I shall go to work, sir!"

At this sublime declaration, Adolphe executes a movement in retreat,
detecting a bitter exasperation, and feeling the sharpness of a north
wind which had never before blown in the matrimonial chamber.

THE ART OF BEING A VICTIM.

On and after the Revolution, our vanquished Caroline adopts an
infernal system, the effect of which is to make you regret your
victory every hour. She becomes the opposition! Should Adolphe have
one more such triumph, he would appear before the Court of Assizes,
accused of having smothered his wife between two mattresses, like
Shakespeare's Othello. Caroline puts on the air of a martyr; her
submission is positively killing. On every occasion she assassinates
Adolphe with a "Just as you like!" uttered in tones whose sweetness is
something fearful. No elegiac poet could compete with Caroline, who
utters elegy upon elegy: elegy in action, elegy in speech: her smile
is elegiac, her silence is elegiac, her gestures are elegiac. Here are
a few examples, wherein every household will find some of its
impressions recorded:

AFTER BREAKFAST. "Caroline, we go to-night to the Deschars' grand ball
you know."

"Yes, love."

AFTER DINNER. "What, not dressed yet, Caroline?" exclaims Adolphe, who
has just made his appearance, magnificently equipped.

He finds Caroline arrayed in a gown fit for an elderly lady of strong
conversational powers, a black moire with an old-fashioned fan-waist.
Flowers, too badly imitated to deserve the name of artificial, give a
gloomy aspect to a head of hair which the chambermaid has carelessly
arranged. Caroline's gloves have already seen wear and tear.

"I am ready, my dear."

"What, in that dress?"

"I have no other. A new dress would have cost three hundred francs."

"Why did you not tell me?"

"I, ask you for anything, after what has happened!"

"I'll go alone," says Adolphe, unwilling to be humiliated in his wife.

"I dare say you are very glad to," returns Caroline, in a captious
tone, "it's plain enough from the way you are got up."

Eleven persons are in the parlor, all invited to dinner by Adolphe.
Caroline is there, looking as if her husband had invited her too. She
is waiting for dinner to be served.

"Sir," says the parlor servant in a whisper to his master, "the cook
doesn't