of many other classes of women, since it is exclusively occupied with the state of her own and her progeny's purse. But the process by which she attains this ideal is charming in itself. She cheerfully makes every personal sacrifice needful, and counts herself blest when she places the hand of a son or daughter in that of a suitable match, with fortune proportionate and prospects of equal promise. She lives for her husband and children; and if, as the fashionable novelists assure us, she often deviates from the path of virtue,—makes, as the boulevardiers say, a rent in the marriage contract,—not even those romancers dare affirm that she neglects, for such caprices, the interests of either.
She is in all things literally the better half of her people. Observe her in all classes, and you will have no further need of explanation of the striking prosperity, strength, and self-sufficiency of France itself. Cheerful, competent, thrifty creature, how could the land that owns her go to the dogs, whatever the decadents and politicians may do? She is the force of the country, its stable influence and salvation. The home rests upon her, and she makes of it a delicious nest for her children, who may exaggerate the outward form of their love for her, but who can never exaggerate the inward devotion they owe her. She has taught them, it is true, to think too much about money, to be too ready to
