“Oh! what an angel you are, my dear!” is the answer to a request discreetly whispered into the ear. “Can you tell me her name or point her out to me?” “Oh! no; she is an honest woman.” When a student is loved by a waitress, he mentions her name with pride and takes his friends to lunch at her house. If a young man loves a woman whose husband is engaged in some trade dealing with articles of necessity, he will answer, blushingly, “She is the wife of a haberdasher, of a stationer, of a hatter, of a linen-draper, of a clerk, etc.” But this confession of love for an inferior which buds and blows in the midst of packages, loaves of sugar, or flannel waistcoats is always accompanied with an exaggerated praise of the lady’s fortune. The husband alone is engaged in the business; he is rich; he has fine furniture. The loved one comes to her lover’s house; she wears a cashmere shawl; she owns a country house, etc. In short, a young man is never wanting in excellent arguments to prove that his mistress is very nearly, if not quite, an honest woman. This distinction originates in the refinement of our manners and has become as indefinite as the line which separates _bon ton_ from vulgarity. What then is meant by an honest woman? On this point the vanity of women, of their lovers, and even that of their husbands, is so sensitive that we had better here settle upon some general rules, which are the result of long observation. Our one million of privileged women represent a multitude who are eligible for the glorious title of honest women, but by no means all are elected to it. The principles on which these elections are based may be found in the following axioms: APHORISMS. I. An honest woman is necessarily a married woman. II. An honest woman is under forty years old. III. A married woman whose favors are to be paid for is not an honest woman. IV. A married woman who keeps a private carriage is an honest woman. V. A woman who does her own cooking is not an honest woman. VI. When a man has made enough to yield an income of twenty thousand francs, his wife is an honest woman, whatever the business in which his fortune was made. VII. A woman who says “letter of change” for letter of exchange, who says of a man, “He is an elegant gentleman,” can never be an honest woman, whatever fortune she possesses. VIII. An honest woman ought to be in a financial condition such as forbids her lover to think she will ever cost him anything. IX. A woman who lives on the third story of any street excepting the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue de Castiglione is not an honest woman. X. The wife of a banker is always an honest woman, but the woman who sits at the cashier’s desk cannot be one, unless her husband has a very large business and she does not live over his shop. XI. The unmarried niece of a bishop when she lives with him can pass for an honest woman, because if she has an intrigue she has to deceive her uncle.