ion has a corollary in the following, one which is much more
serious and often without remedy, especially when its root lies among
vices of another kind, and which do not concern us, for, in this work,
women are invariably esteemed honest--until the end.

THE DOMESTIC TYRANT.

"My dear Caroline," says Adolphe one day to his wife, "are you
satisfied with Justine?"

"Yes, dear, quite so."

"Don't you think she speaks to you rather impertinently?"

"Do you suppose I would notice a maid? But it seems _you_ notice her!"

"What do you say?" asks Adolphe in an indignant way that is always
delightful to women.

Justine is a genuine maid for an actress, a woman of thirty stamped by
the small-pox with innumerable dimples, in which the loves are far
from sporting: she is as brown as opium, has a good deal of leg and
not much body, gummy eyes, and a tournure to match. She would like to
have Benoit marry her, but at this unexpected suggestion, Benoit asked
for his discharge. Such is the portrait of the domestic tyrant
enthroned by Caroline's jealousy.

Justine takes her coffee in the morning, in bed, and manages to have
it as good as, not to say better than, that of her mistress. Justine
sometimes goes out without asking leave, dressed like the wife of a
second-class banker. She sports a pink hat, one of her mistress' old
gowns made over, an elegant shawl, shoes of bronze kid, and jewelry of
doubtful character.

Justine is sometimes in a bad humor, and makes her mistress feel that
she too is a woman like herself, though she is not married. She has
her whims, her fits of melancholy, her caprices. She even dares to
have her nerves! She replies curtly, she makes herself insupportable
to the other servants, and, to conclude, her wages have been
considerably increased.

"My dear, this girl is getting more intolerable every day," says
Adolphe one morning to his wife, on noticing Justine listening at the
key-hole, "and if you don't send her away, I will!"

Caroline, greatly alarmed, is obliged to give Justine a talking to,
while her husband is out.

"Justine, you take advantage of my kindness to you: you have high
wages, here, you have perquisites, presents: try to keep your place,
for my husband wants to send you away."

The maid humbles herself to the earth, she sheds tears: she is so
attached to madame! Ah! she would rush into the fire for her: she
would let herself be chopped into mince-mea