prudes are flattered by it, for, be it known:

That women of a certain age, women on the shady side, want to be
treated as mortals, they love the actual; they cannot bear the idea of
no longer being what nature intended them to be.

Axiom.--Modesty is a relative virtue; there is the modesty of the
woman of twenty, the woman of thirty, the woman of forty-five.

Thus the author said to a lady who told him to guess at her age:
"Madame, yours is the age of indiscretion."

This charming woman of thirty-nine was making a Ferdinand much too
conspicuous, while her daughter was trying to conceal her Ferdinand I.

BRUTAL DISCLOSURES.

FIRST STYLE. Caroline adores Adolphe, she thinks him handsome, she
thinks him superb, especially in his National Guard uniform. She
starts when a sentinel presents arms to him, she considers him moulded
like a model, she regards him as a man of wit, everything he does is
right, nobody has better taste than he, in short, she is crazy about
Adolphe.

It's the old story of Cupid's bandage. This is washed every ten years,
and newly embroidered by the altered manners of the period, but it has
been the same old bandage since the days of Greece.

Caroline is at a ball with one of her young friends. A man well known
for his bluntness, whose acquaintance she is to make later in life,
but whom she now sees for the first time, Monsieur Foullepointe, has
commenced a conversation with Caroline's friend. According to the
custom of society, Caroline listens to this conversation without
mingling in it.

"Pray tell me, madame," says Monsieur Foullepointe, "who is that queer
man who has been talking about the Court of Assizes before a gentleman
whose acquittal lately created such a sensation: he is all the while
blundering, like an ox in a bog, against everybody's sore spot. A lady
burst into tears at hearing him tell of the death of a child, as she
lost her own two months ago."

"Who do you mean?"

"Why, that fat man, dressed like a waiter in a cafe, frizzled like a
barber's apprentice, there, he's trying now to make himself agreeable
to Madame de Fischtaminel."

"Hush," whispers the lady quite alarmed, "it's the husband of the
little woman next to me!"

"Ah, it's your husband?" says Monsieur Foullepointe. "I am delighted,
madame, he's a charming man, so vivacious, gay and witty. I am going
to make his acquaintance immediately."

And Foullepointe executes his ret