it is a condition of all species of power. You cannot diversify
happiness by the cares of property or the occupations of a family. If

you do not make your husband share your social interests, if you do
not keep him amused you will fall into a dismalapathy. Then begins

the SPLEEN of love. But a man will always love the woman who amuses
him and keeps him happy. To give happiness and to receive it are two

lines of feminine conduct which are separated by a gulf."
"Dear mother, I am listening to you, but I don't understand one word

you say."
"If you love Paul to the extent of doing all he asks of you, if you

make your happiness depend on him, all is over with your future life;
you will never be mistress of your home, and the best precepts in the

world will do you no good."
"That is plainer; but I see the rule without knowing how to apply it,"

said Natalie, laughing. "I have the theory; the practice will come."
"My poor Ninie," replied the mother, who dropped an honest tear at the

thought of her daughter's marriage, "things will happen to teach it to
you--And," she continued, after a pause, during which the mother and

daughter held each other closely embraced in the truest sympathy,
"remember this, my Natalie: we all have our destiny as women, just as

men have their vocation as men. A woman is born to be a woman of the
world and a charminghostess, as a man is born to be a general or a

poet. Your vocation is to please. Your education has formed you for
society. In these days women should be educated for the salon as they

once were for the gynoecium. You were not born to be the mother of a
family or the steward of a household. If you have children, I hope

they will not come to spoil your figure on the morrow of your
marriage; nothing is so bourgeois as to have a child at once. If you

have them two or three years after your marriage, well and good;
governesses and tutors will bring them up. YOU are to be the lady, the

great lady, who represents the luxury and the pleasure of the house.
But remember one thing--let your superiority be visible in those

things only which flatter a man's self-love; hide the superiority you
must also acquire over him in great things."

"But you frighten me, mamma," cried Natalie. "How can I remember all
these precepts? How shall I ever manage, I, such a child, and so

heedless, to reflect and calculate before I act?"
"But, my dear little girl, I am telling you to-day that which you must

surely learn later, buying your experience by fatal faults and errors
of conduct which will cause you bitter regrets and embarrass your

whole life."
"But how must I begin?" asked Natalie, artlessly.

"Instinct will guide you," replied her mother. "At this moment Paul
desires you more than he loves you; for love born of desires is a

hope; the love that succeeds their satisfaction is the reality. There,
my dear, is the question; there lies your power. What woman is not

loved before marriage? Be so on the morrow and you shall remain so
always. Paul is a weak man who is easily trained to habit. If he

yields to you once he will yield always. A woman ardently desired can
ask all things; do not commit the folly of many women who do not see

the importance of the first hours of their sway,--that of wasting your
power on trifles, on silly things with no result. Use the empire your

husband's first emotions give you to accustom him to obedience. And
when you make him yield, choose that it be on some unreasonable point,

so as to test the measure of your power by the measure of his
concession. What victory would there be in making him agree to a

reasonable thing? Would that be obeying you? We must always, as the
Castilian proverb says, take the bull by the horns; when a bull has

once seen the inutility of his defence and of his strength he is
beaten. When your husband does a foolish thing for you, you can govern

him."
"Why so?"

"Because, my child, marriage lasts a lifetime, and a husband is not a
man like other men. Therefore, never commit the folly of giving

yourself into his power in everything. Keep up a constant reserve in
your speech and in your actions. You may even be cold to him without

danger, for you can modify coldness at will. Besides, nothing is more
easy to maintain than our dignity. The words, 'It is not becoming in

your wife to do thus and so,' is a great talisman. The life of a woman
lies in the words, 'I will not.' They are the final argument. Feminine

power is in them, and therefore they should only be used on real
occasions. But they constitute a means of governing far beyond that of

argument or discussion. I, my dear child, reigned over your father by
his faith in me. If your husband believes in you, you can do all

things with him. To inspire that belief you must make him think that
you understand him. Do not suppose that that is an easy thing to do. A

woman can always make a man think that he is loved, but to make him
admit that he is understood is far more difficult. I am bound to tell

you all now, my child, for to-morrow life with its complications, life
with two wills which MUST be made one, begins for you. Bear in mind,

at all moments, that difficulty. The only means of harmonizing your
two wills is to arrange from the first that there shall be but one;

and that will must be yours. Many persons declare that a wife creates
her own unhappiness by changing sides in this way; but, my dear, she

can only become the mistress by controlling events instead of bearing
them; and that advantage compensates for any difficulty."

Natalie kissed her mother's hands with tears of gratitude. Like all
women in whom mentalemotion is never warmed by physicalemotion, she

suddenly comprehended the bearings of this femininepolicy; but, like
a spoiled child that never admits the force of reason and returns

obstinately to its one desire, she came back to the charge with one of
those personal arguments which the logic of a child suggests:--

"Dear mamma," she said, "it is only a few days since you were talking
of Paul's advancement, and saying that you alone could promote it;

why, then, do you suddenly turn round and abandon us to ourselves?"
"I did not then know the extent of my obligations nor the amount of my

debts," replied the mother, who would not suffer her real motive to be
seen. "Besides, a year or two hence I can take up that matter again.

Come, let us dress; Paul will be here soon. Be as sweet and caressing
as you were,--you know?--that night when we first discussed this fatal

contract; for to-day we must save the last fragments of our fortune,
and I must win for you a thing to which I am superstitiously attached."

"What is it?"
"The 'Discreto.'"

Paul arrived about four o'clock. Though he endeavored to meet his
mother-in-law with a gracious look upon his face, Madame Evangelista

saw traces of the clouds which the counsels of the night and the
reflections of the morning had brought there.

"Mathias has told him!" she thought, resolving to defeat the old
notary's action. "My dear son," she said, "you left your diamonds in

the drawer of the console, and I franklyconfess that I would rather
not see again the things that threatened to bring a cloud between us.

Besides, as Monsieur Mathias said, they ought to be sold at once to
meet the first payment on the estates you have purchased."

"They are not mine," he said. "I have given them to Natalie, and when
you see them upon her you will forget the pain they caused you."

Madame Evangelista took his hand and pressed it cordially, with a tear
of emotion.

"Listen to me, my dear children," she said, looking from Paul to
Natalie; "since you really feel thus, I have a proposition to make to

both of you. I find myself obliged to sell my pearl necklace and my
earrings. Yes, Paul, it is necessary; I do not choose to put a penny

of my fortune into an annuity; I know what I owe to you. Well, I admit
a weakness; to sell the 'Discreto' seems to me a disaster. To sell a

diamond which bears the name of Philip the Second and once adorned his
royal hand, an historic stone which the Duke of Alba touched for ten

years in the hilt of his sword--no, no, I cannot! Elie Magus estimates
my necklace and ear-rings at a hundred and some odd thousand francs

without the clasps. Will you exchange the other jewels I made over to