These good and warm-hearted women are accused of being enthusiasts, and romantic.  People say that at their age it is odd, if not absurd, to indulge in such exaggerated notions of attachment; nay more, to give such disinterested proofs of it.  They may well smile at such remarks, while conscious that their devotion to their nephew has not only secured his happiness, but constitutes their own; and that the warmth of affection for which they are censured, cheers the winter of their lives and diffuses a comfort over their existence unknown to the selfish mortals who live only for self.

They talked to me last night of the happiness they anticipated in seeing their nephew married.  “He is so good, so excellent, that the person he selects cannot fail to love him fondly,” said La Chanoinesse; “and we will love her so dearly for ensuring his happiness,” added the other sister.

Who could know these two estimable women, without acknowledging how harsh and unjust are often the sweeping censures pronounced on those who are termed old maids?—­a class in whose breasts the affections instinct in woman, not being exercised by conjugal or maternal ties, expand into some other channel; and, if denied some dear object on which to place them, expends them on the domestic animals with which, in default of more rational favourites, they surround themselves.

Les Dames de B——­, happier than many of the spinsters of their age, have an estimable object to bestow their affections on; but those who are less fortunate should rather excite our pity than ridicule, for many and severe must have been the trials of that heart which turns at last, dans le besoin d’aimer, to the bird, dog, or cat, that renders solitude less lonely.

The difference between servitude in England and in France often strikes me, and more especially when I hear the frequent complaints made by English people of the insolence and familiarity of French servants.  Unaccustomed to hear a servant reply to any censure passed on him, the English are apt to consider his doing so as a want of respect or subordination, though a French servant does not even dream that he is guilty of either when, according to the general habit of his class and country, he attempts an exculpation not always satisfactory to his employer, however it may be to himself.

A French master listens to the explanation patiently, or at least without any demonstration of anger, unless he finds it is not based on truth, when he reprehends the servant in a manner that satisfies the latter that all future attempts to avoid blame by misrepresentation will be unavailing.  French servants imagine that they have the right to explain, and their employers do not deny it; consequently, when they change a French for an English master, they continue the same tone and manner to which they have been used, and are not a little surprised to find themselves considered guilty of impertinence.