head who dares to think that you could have too much of your innamorata."

"Very likely," says Guy absently, looking into the fire, and thinking what utter happiness it would be to go through life with Milly Scarlett.

"I think the best thing," proceeds Charles Vivian reflectively, "since landed property and the laws of society compel the sacrifice, is to marry some very simple little country girl, and mould her oneself. It wouldn't be very exciting perhaps, but at all events she wouldn't be always kicking over the traces, and asserting her will against yours."

"Pshaw!" is the impatient answer. "What pleasure on earth can a man have in a little bread-and-butter school-girl. Give me a woman of the world, brilliant, fascinating, charming. A woman whose love would raise you to Heaven, or sink

you into the lowest depths of despair."

His voice kindles, his eyes flash, the hand that holds his forgotten cigar trembles visibly.

"Guy," asks his friend quietly, "are you thinking of Milly Scarlett ?"

"If I am?" he inquires stiffly, reddening a little.

"I should be rather sorry, that's all. Don't misunderstand me. I am not going to say a word against her. I daresay she'd make a very good wife to a man who wasn't jealous. She was an excellent wife to Scarlett, I believe, but since that time she has been thoroughly spoilt, and I don't believe she could exist without admiration."

"I don't suppose any sensible man would object to his wife being admired," Guy remarks with some coldness.

"No, not to a certain extent, I daresay. But the present state of society is rather

a curious one. Married women now-a-days expect (and not in vain) as much attention and admiration as a young débutante did formerly. I don't think it's at all a satisfactory state either for them or the men they marry, their children, household, or anything else. These cursed French manners don't suit us a bit."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Guy, indignantly, "that there are not women whom no example or customs in the world could contaminate ?"

"I don't believe in any woman breathing," answers Mr. Vivian, slowly. "I like women, I admire them, I take pleasure in their society, but I have no faith in them."

Guy preserves a disgusted silence, and Charles Vivian, settling himself down in his chair, proceeds uninterrupted with his oration. He is a good talker, and a shrewd observer; he loves the sound of his own

VOL. I.

K

voice, and he loves to revenge the sufferings of his married life by opening the eyes (as he thinks) of his fellow-men. But he prides himself on being strictly just-he always makes allowances for every woman Thus he delivers himself:

but one.

"I

I don't

say that women are false by nature, by constitution, by education, and, generally speaking, by inclination. agree with the fools who think it fine to say they are only fit to be the slaves or playthings of men. On the contrary, I think them, sometimes, if not our superiors, at all events our equals. We, for the most part, are infernally selfish. Our one great concern in life—of course I am speaking of idle fellows like you and me -is to be as much amused and as little bored as possible. We have a perpetual craving after excitement, and nineteentwentieths of us don't care a straw at what

expense to others, and often to ourselves,

we gratify it."

"Confound it all!" breaks in Guy.

"My dear fellow, please to understand that my remarks are not personal. It isn't a question of you or me."

"Oh! all right, I thought it was. Pray proceed," laughs Guy, good-humouredly, puffing away at his cigar, and entirely fortified by the dear image in his mind against any of the vituperations he knows to be coming. When Charles Vivian means to be very down upon women, he always commences with a mild depreciation of his

own sex.

"Women love admiration, and that is the first step towards making them false. They like it to be known that they are admired, therefore they must have a little court about them; therefore they must always appear