pediency of resorting to a cab or hack, and informs her that if he is walking too fast for her, he possesses the ability to moderate his progressive speed; all of which profound and pertinent remarks are either heard in silence, or produce a scarcely perceptive elevation of the lady's shoulders, suggestive of impatience or annoyance. When he takes her to a lecture or a concert, she is naturally desirous of hearing the speaker or the singers, but our careful husband, in the midst of an interesting passage or a charming song, discovers that she looks pale, and inquires with much interest if she feels unwell. A simple negative is unsatisfactory. He enumerates a number of disorders, and she must defend herself by denying them separately and singly. At a dinner-party, no matter how far removed from the lady, the attentive husband fixes his vigilant eye upon her with a gaze as fearfully fascinating as that of the cobra capella. His remarks on such an occasion are generally unsatisfactory to the lady, as those of the physician were to Sancho Panza during his melancholy reign at Barratraria.

"My love! don't think of eating that! Good heavens anchovies are rank poison to you. It's as much as your life's worth. Don't give her Madeira, for the love of heaven. I know her constitution, sir."

The lady commonly puts an end to the affair, by coaxing her lips into a very pout, and eating nothing at all-opposition having spoiled her appetite. Meanwhile the careful husband proves himself a very commendable trencher-man; eats freely of the forbidden fruits, and is by no means neglectful of the prohibited Madeira. If this happy couple are going to a ball, the watchful care of the attentive husband commences with the toilet.

"My dear child, that gown is too low in the neck-you will catch your death assuredly. Besides it is too tight-I know it is."

"I assure you, my dear, it is the very reverse."

"Ah! you women will never confess itpinch yourselves to death for the sake of fashion -and die martyrs to the ambition of having a small waist." Here the gentleman commonly

repeats the names of a number of ladies who have fallen victims to a prevalent folly, and substantiates his statements with a world of circumstantial evidence. He ends by declaring that if the lady wears "that dress," he shall be very unhappy, in fact, perfectly miserable, for the entire evening; whereupon she substitutes another gown, which is very ill-made and very unbecoming, and thinks all the evening of the discarded dress, which fitted to a charm. In the ballroom, instead of permitting his wife to enjoy herself, and seeking to pass the evening pleasantly himself, the attentive husband never loses sight of his wife a single moment—not from motives of jealousy, for the attentive husband is never jealous, being fully persuaded that his lady cannot find in the entire world a being so devoted to her welfare and happiness as himself; but in the ballroom, as in the street, and at home, he manifests the most untiring, and indeed touching solicitude. Sentinel-like, he paces to and fro in the apartment where his wife is, and she has no sooner finished a single dance, than he accosts her :

"You are very warm, my dear." "Not too warm."

"Yes, too warm decidedly. Do you dance another quadrille ?"

"Certainly, I am engaged.'

"My dear, you shock me unspeakably. You should never have accepted.

rested yourself."

You should have

After the next dance, the moment her partner has handed her to her seat, the figure of her husband appears like one of those phantoms that arise so startlingly by the agency of Phantasmagoria.

"How red you look!" exclaims the attentive husband, with the mournful air of a watchful mother, who suspects from the pulse of a child, the existence of fever.

The poor woman tries to smile as she replies, "Is there anything strange in having a colour after dancing?

"No, not a little colour I admit, but upon my soul, I never saw you look so feverish before.” An idea suddenly flashes across the mind of the poor woman, so mortifying and appalling

that it visibly deepens the carnation of her cheek. Something whispers that her complexion approximates to that of a lobster, after its immersion in boiling water. She appeals to her next neighbour and ascertains it to be "a weak invention of the enemy."

A young gentleman having been so fortunate as to capture a couple of ice-creams, which a waiter is bearing by with very tantalizing rapidity, offers one to the wife of our attentive husband. The latter detects his partner in the very act of raising a spoon surcharged with a portion of the contents of the whip-glass to her lips. In an instant he is at her side, and with an air of triumph removes the dangerous glass from her fair hand.

"What were you thinking of?" he asks, with a half-tender, half-reproachful air.

"I was going to eat the ice," replies the pouting fair.

"Not one particle, my love. Ice after dancing? Monstrous! You are too warm-the ice too cold. It would be the death of you." "But these ladies have all been dancingand they are eating ices."