mebody,
a Man in the Blue Cloak on a small scale; and then a young woman is
proud of her husband," Adolphe replies.

This answer is the grave of love, and Caroline takes it in very bad
part. An explanation follows. This must be classed among the thousand
pleasantries of the following chapter, the title of which ought to
make lovers smile as well as husbands. If there are yellow rays of
light, why should there not be whole days of this extremely
matrimonial color?

FORCED SMILES.

On your arrival in this latitude, you enjoy numerous little scenes,
which, in the grand opera of marriage, represent the intermezzos, and
of which the following is a type:

You are one evening alone after dinner, and you have been so often
alone already that you feel a desire to say sharp little things to
each other, like this, for instance:

"Take care, Caroline," says Adolphe, who has not forgotten his many
vain efforts to please her. "I think your nose has the impertinence to
redden at home quite well as at the restaurant."

"This is not one of your amiable days!"

General Rule.--No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly
advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.

"Perhaps it's because you are laced too tight. Women make themselves
sick that way."

The moment a man utters these words to a woman, no matter whom, that
woman,--who knows that stays will bend,--seizes her corset by the
lower end, and bends it out, saying, with Caroline:

"Look, you can get your hand in! I never lace tight."

"Then it must be your stomach."

"What has the stomach got to do with the nose?"

"The stomach is a centre which communicates with all the organs."

"So the nose is an organ, is it?"

"Yes."

"Your organ is doing you a poor service at this moment." She raises
her eyes and shrugs her shoulders. "Come, Adolphe, what have I done?"

"Nothing. I'm only joking, and I am unfortunate enough not to please
you," returns Adolphe, smiling.

"My misfortune is being your wife! Oh, why am I not somebody else's!"

"That's what _I_ say!"

"If I were, and if I had the innocence to say to you, like a coquette
who wishes to know how far she has got with a man, 'the redness of my
nose really gives me anxiety,' you would look at me in the glass with
all the affectations of an ape, and would reply, 'O madame, you do
yourself an injustice; in the first place, nobody sees it: besides, it
harmonizes with