id, "I am indebted to you for the very great
pleasure you have given me; but I have paid you back with a beautiful
dream," and she looked at me with an expression of subtle meaning.
"But adieu, and forever! You have plucked a solitary flower,
blossoming in its loveliness, which no man--"

She stopped and her thought evaporated in a sigh; but she checked the
rising flood of sensibility and smiled significantly.

"The countess loves you," she said. "If I have robbed her of some
transports, I give you back to her less ignorant than before. Adieu!
Do not make mischief between my friend and me."

She wrung my hand and left me.

More than once the ladies who had mislaid their fans blushed as they
listened to the old gentleman, whose brilliant elocution won their
indulgence for certain details which we have suppressed, as too erotic
for the present age; nevertheless, we may believe that each lady
complimented him in private; for some time afterwards he gave to each
of them, as also to the masculine guests, a copy of this charming
story, twenty-five copies of which were printed by Pierre Didot. It is
from copy No. 24 that the author has transcribed this tale, hitherto
unpublished, and, strange to say, attributed to Dorat. It has the
merit of yielding important lessons for husbands, while at the same
time it gives the celibates a delightful picture of morals in the last
century.

MEDITATION XXV.

OF ALLIES.

Of all the miseries that civil war can bring upon a country the
greatest lies in the appeal which one of the contestants always ends
by making to some foreign government.

Unhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this great
mistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers. It may be
a member of their family or at least a distant cousin. This
Meditation, then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistance
can each of the different powers which influence human life give to
your wife? or better than that, what artifices will she resort to to
arm them against you?

Two beings united by marriage are subject to the laws of religion and
society; to those of private life, and, from considerations of health,
to those of medicine. We will therefore divide this important
Meditation into six paragraphs:

1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION
WITH MARRIAGE.
2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.
3. OF