“PARIS.

“Ah! my poor Claire, could you have known how many wretched little griefs your innocent letter would awaken, you never would have written it.  Certainly no friend, and not even an enemy, on seeing a woman with a thousand mosquito-bites and a plaster over them, would amuse herself by tearing it off and counting the stings.

“I will begin by telling you that for a woman of twenty-seven, with a face still passable, but with a form a little too much like that of the Emperor Nicholas for the humble part I play, I am happy!  Let me tell you why:  Adolphe, rejoicing in the deceptions which have fallen upon me like a hail-storm, smoothes over the wounds in my self-love by so much affection, so many attentions, and such charming things, that, in good truth, women—­so far as they are simply women—­would be glad to find in the man they marry defects so advantageous.  But all men of letters (Adolphe, alas! is barely a man of letters), who are beings not a bit less irritable, nervous, fickle and eccentric than women, are far from possessing such solid qualities as those of Adolphe, and I hope they have not all been as unfortunate as he.

“Ah!  Claire, we love each other well enough for me to tell you the simple truth.  I have saved my husband, dear, from profound but skillfully concealed poverty.  Far from receiving twenty thousand francs a year, he has not earned that sum in the entire fifteen years that he has been at Paris.  We occupy a third story in the rue Joubert, and pay twelve hundred francs for it; we have some eighty-five hundred francs left, with which I endeavor to keep house honorably.

“I have brought Adolphe luck; for since our marriage, he has obtained the control of a feuilleton which is worth four hundred francs a month to him, though it takes but a small portion of his time.  He owes this situation to an investment.  We employed the seventy thousand francs left me by my Aunt Carabas in giving security for a newspaper; on this we get nine per cent, and we have stock besides.  Since this transaction, which was concluded some ten months ago, our income has doubled, and we now possess a competence, I can complain of my marriage in a pecuniary point of view no more than as regards my affections.  My vanity alone has suffered, and my ambition has been swamped.  You will understand the various petty troubles which have assailed me, by a single specimen.

“Adolphe, you remember, appeared to us on intimate terms with the famous Baroness Schinner, so renowned for her wit, her influence, her wealth and her connection with celebrated men.  I supposed that he was welcomed at her house as a friend:  my husband presented me, and I was coldly received.  I saw that her rooms were furnished with extravagant luxury; and instead of Madame Schinner’s returning my call, I received a card, twenty days afterward, and at an insolently improper hour.