Lenette had two feminine bad habits, which have sent millions of male rockets, or pyrotechnic serpents--namely, curses--up skywards. The first was, that whenever she gave the servant an order, she did it as if it were a memorial in two copies, and then went out of the room with her and repeated the order in question three or four times more in the passage. The second was, that let Siebenkæs shout a thing to her, as distinctly as man could, her first answer was, "What?" or, "What do you say?" Now, I not only advise ladies always to demand a "second of exchange" of this sort when they are in any embarrassment for an answer, and I laud them for so doing; but in cases where what is required of them is attention, not the truth, this _ancora_ and _bis_ which they cry to a speaker who is anxious not to waste time, is as cumbersome as it is unnecessary. Matters of this kind are trifles in married life only so long as the sufferer by them does not complain of them. But when they have been found fault with they are worse than deadly sins, and felonies, and adulteries--seeing that they occur much more frequently. If the author were disturbed at his work by pleonasms of the above description; what he would do would be, not deliver a serious lecture, but (because this is a good opportunity) write the following EXTRA LEAFLET ON FEMALE LOQUACITY. "The author of the work on 'Marriage' has said, 'A woman who does not talk is a stupid woman.' But it is easier to be his encomiast than his disciple. The cleverest women are often silent with women, and the most stupid and most silent are often both with men. On the whole, this statement, which has been applied to the male sex, is true also of the female, namely, that those who think most have least to say; as frogs cease croaking when a light is brought to the side of their pond. Moreover, the extreme talkativeness of women is a result of the sedentary nature of their occupations. Men, whose work is sedentary, such as tailors, shoemakers, weavers, have in common with women not only their hypochondriac fancies, but also their loquacity. "The little work-tables, where feminine fingers are employed, are also the playgrounds of the feminine imagination, and their needles become little magic wands, wherewith they transform their rooms into isles of spirits filled with dreams. Hence it is that a letter or a book distracts a woman who is in love more than the knitting of a whole pair of stockings. Savages say that the monkeys refrain from talking that they may not be made to work; but many a woman talks twice as much when she is working as when she is not.