"There is no country in the world in which women speak the truth in regard to their age. At Paris, about a month ago, a maiden of forty-eight and a woman of sixty-nine had occasion to go before a magistrate as witnesses in a case which concerned the honour of a widow of their acquaintance. The magistrate, first addressing himself to the married lady, asked her age; and, although her years might have been counted by the wrinkles on her brow, she unhesitatingly replied, that she was exactly forty. 'And you, madam,' said the man of law, addressing the single lady in her turn, 'may I ask your age also?' 'We can dispense with that, your worship,' replied the damsel; 'it is a question that ought not to be asked.' 'Impossible!' replied he; 'are you not aware that the law requires....' 'Oh!' interrupted the lady sharply, 'the law requires nothing of the kind: what matters it to the law what my age may be? It is none of its business.' 'But, madam,' said the magistrate, 'I cannot receive your testimony unless your age be stated; it is a necessary preliminary, I assure you.' 'Well,' replied the maiden, 'if it be absolutely necessary, look at me with attention, and put down my age conscientiously.'
"The magistrate looked at her over his spectacles, and was polite enough to decree that she did not appear above twenty-eight. But when to his question, as to how long she had known the widow, the witness replied—before her marriage: 'I have made a mistake,' said he; 'for I have put you down for twenty-eight, whereas it is nine and twenty years since the lady became a wife.' 'You may state then,' cried the maiden, 'that I am thirty: I may have known the widow since I was one year old.' 'That will hardly do,' replied the magistrate; 'we may as well add a dozen years at once.' 'By no means,' said the lady; 'I will allow another year, if you please; but if my own honour were in question instead of the widow's, I would not add one month more to please the law, or any other body in the world.'
"When the two witnesses had left the magistrate, the woman said to the maiden: 'Do not you wonder at this noodle, who thinks us young enough to tell him our ages to a day? It is enough, surely, that they should be inscribed on the parish registers, without his poking them into his depositions, for the information of all the world. It would be delightful, truly, to hear recited in open court,—Madame Richard, aged sixty and so many years, and Mademoiselle Perinelle, aged forty-five, depose such and so forth. It is too absurd: I have taken care to suppress a good score of years; and you were wise enough to follow my example.'
'What do you mean by following your example?' cried the ancient damsel, with youthful indignation: 'I am extremely obliged to you; but I would have you to know that thirty-five years are the utmost I have seen.' 'Why! child,' replied the matron, with a malicious smile, 'you forget yourself: I was present at your birth—ah! what a time it is ago! And your poor father! I knew him well. But we must all die; and he was not young, either: it is nearly forty years since we buried him.' 'Oh! my father,' interrupted the virgin, hastily, irritated at the precision of the old dame's tender recollections,—'my father was so old when he married my mother, that she was not likely to have any children by him.'
"I perceive in that house opposite," continued the Spirit, "two men, who are not over-burdened with sense. One is a youth of family, who can neither keep money in his pocket, nor do entirely without it: he has discovered, therefore, an excellent means of always having a supply. When he is in cash, he lays it out in books, and when his purse is empty, he sells them for the half of their cost. The other is a foreign artist, who seeks for patronage among the ladies as a portrait painter: he is clever, draws correctly, colours to perfection, and is extraordinarily successful in the likeness; but—he never flatters his originals, yet expects the women will flock to him. Sheer stupidity! Inter stultos referatur."
"What?" cried the Scholar, "have you studied the classics?" "You ought hardly to be surprised at that," replied the Devil: "I speak fluently all your barbarous tongues—Hebrew, Greek, Persic, and Arabic. Nevertheless, I am not vain of my attainments; and that, at all events, is an advantage I have over your learned pedants.
"You may see in that large mansion, on the left, a sick lady surrounded by several others, who are in attendance upon her: she is the rich widow of a celebrated architect, whose love for her husband's profession has extended itself to the most foolish admiration of the Corinthian capital of society—the higher classes. She has just made her will, by which she bequeaths her immense wealth to grandees of the first class, who are ignorant of her very existence, but whose titles have gained for them their legacies. She was asked whether she would not leave something to a person who had rendered her most important services. 'Alas! no,' she replied, with an appearance of regret; 'and I am sorry that I cannot do so. I am not so ungrateful as to deny the obligation which I owe to him; but his humble name would disgrace my will.'"