You have some hope in a consultation that is to take place to-morrow.  You, kind-hearted man that you are, you turn red, you hope it is merely the dropsy; but the doctors confirm the arrival of a little last one!

In such circumstances some timorous husbands go to the country or make a journey to Italy.  In short, a strange confusion reigns in your household; both you and your wife are in a false position.

“Why, you old rogue, you, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” says a friend to you on the Boulevard.

“Well! do as much if you can,” is your angry retort.

“It’s as bad as being robbed on the highway!” says your son-in-law’s family.  “Robbed on the highway” is a flattering expression for the mother-in-law.

The family hopes that the child which divides the expected fortune in three parts, will be, like all old men’s children, scrofulous, feeble, an abortion.  Will it be likely to live?  The family awaits the delivery of your wife with an anxiety like that which agitated the house of Orleans during the confinement of the Duchess de Berri:  a second son would secure the throne to the younger branch without the onerous conditions of July; Henry V would easily seize the crown.  From that moment the house of Orleans was obliged to play double or quits:  the event gave them the game.

The mother and the daughter are put to bed nine days apart.

Caroline’s first child is a pale, cadaverous little girl that will not live.

Her mother’s last child is a splendid boy, weighing twelve pounds, with two teeth and luxuriant hair.

For sixteen years you have desired a son.  This conjugal annoyance is the only one that makes you beside yourself with joy.  For your rejuvenated wife has attained what must be called the Indian Summer of women; she nurses, she has a full breast of milk!  Her complexion is fresh, her color is pure pink and white.  In her forty-second year, she affects the young woman, buys little baby stockings, walks about followed by a nurse, embroiders caps and tries on the cunningest headdresses.  Alexandrine has resolved to instruct her daughter by her example; she is delightful and happy.  And yet this is a trouble, a petty one for you, a serious one for your son-in-law.  This annoyance is of the two sexes, it is common to you and your wife.  In short, in this instance, your paternity renders you all the more proud from the fact that it is incontestable, my dear sir!

Revelations.

Generally speaking, a young woman does not exhibit her true character till she has been married two or three years.  She hides her faults, without intending it, in the midst of her first joys, of her first parties of pleasure.  She goes into society to dance, she visits her relatives to show you off, she journeys on with an escort of love’s first wiles; she is gradually transformed from girlhood to womanhood.  Then she becomes mother and nurse, and in this situation, full of charming pangs, that leaves neither a word nor a moment for observation, such are its multiplied cares, it is impossible to judge of a woman.  You require, then, three or four years of intimate life before you discover an exceedingly melancholy fact, one that gives you cause for constant terror.