to make me laugh, make me share your
feelings."

"Adieu, madame, there is a certain clemency in your sternness. I
appreciate the lesson you have taught me. Yes, I have many faults to
expiate."

"Well then, go and repent of them," she said with a mocking smile; "in
making Louise happy you will perform the rudest penance in your power."

They parted. But the love of the baron was too violent to allow of
Madame B-----'s harshness failing to accomplish her end, namely, the
separation of the married couple.

At the end of some months the Baron de V----- and his wife lived apart,
though they lived in the same mansion. The baroness was the object of
universal pity, for in public she always did justice to her husband
and her resignation seemed wonderful. The most prudish women of society
found nothing to blame in the friendship which united Louise to the
young Rostanges. And all was laid to the charge of Monsieur de V-----'s
folly.

When this last had made all the sacrifices that a man could make for
Madame B-----, his perfidious mistress started for the waters of Mount
Dore, for Switzerland and for Italy, on the pretext of seeking the
restoration of her health.

The baron died of inflammation of the liver, being attended during his
sickness by the most touching ministrations which his wife could lavish
upon him; and judging from the grief which he manifested at having
deserted her, he seemed never to have suspected her participation in the
plan which had been his ruin.

This anecdote, which we have chosen from a thousand others, exemplifies
the services which two women can render each other.

From the words--"Let me have the pleasure of bringing my husband" up to
the conception of the drama, whose denouement was inflammation of the
liver, every female perfidy was assembled to work out the end. Certain
incidents will, of course, be met with which diversify more or less
the typical example which we have given, but the march of the drama is
almost always the same. Moreover a husband ought always to distrust the
woman friends of his wife. The subtle artifices of these lying creatures
rarely fail of their effect, for they are seconded by two enemies, who
always keep close to a man--and these are vanity and desire.

4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.

The man who hastens to tell another man that he has dropped a thousand
franc bill from his pocket-book, or even that the handkerchief is coming
out of his pocket, would thin