"I also love pleasure--the beautiful toilets that make us resemble flowers, the lighted salons, the music, the gay voices and the dance. Yes, I love all these things; I experience their charming confusion; I palpitate, I inhale their intoxication. But always-- always! at Paris in the winter--at the springs in summer--ever this crowd, ever this whirl, this intoxication of pleasure! All become like savages, like negroes, and--dare I say so?--bestial! Alas for Lent! "HE foresaw it. HE told us, as the priest told me this morning: 'Remember you have a soul: Remember you have duties!--a husband --a child--a mother--a God!' "Then, my mother, we should retire within ourselves; should pass the time in grave thought between the church and our homes; should converse on solemn and serious subjects; and should dwell in the moral world to gain a foothold in heaven! This season is intended as a wholesome interval to prevent our running frivolity into dissipation, and pleasure into convulsion; to prevent our winter's mask from becoming our permanent visage. This is entirely the opinion of Madame Jaubert. "Who is this Madame Jaubert? you will ask. She is a little Parisian angel whom my mother would dearly love! I met her almost everywhere--but chiefly at St. Phillipe de Roule--for several months without being aware that she is our neighbor, that her hotel adjoins ours. Such is Paris! "She is a graceful person, with a soft and tender, but decided air. We sat near each other at church; we gave each other side-glances; we pushed our chairs to let each other pass; and in our softest voices would say, 'Excuse me, Madame!' 'Oh, Madame!' My glove would fall, she would pick it up; I would offer her the holy water, and receive a sweet smile, with 'Dear Madame!' Once at a concert at the Tuileries we observed each other at a distance, and smiled recognition; when any part of the music pleased us particularly we glanced smilingly at each other. Judge of my surprise next morning when I saw my affinity enter the little Italian house next ours--and enter it, too, as if it were her home. On inquiry I found she was Madame Jaubert, the wife of a tall, fair young man who is a civil engineer. "I was seized with a desire to call upon my neighbor. I spoke of it to Louis, blushing slightly, for I remembered he did not approve of intimacies between women. But above all, he loves me! "Notwithstanding he slightly shrugged his shoulders--'Permit me at least, Miss Mary, to make some inquiries about these people.' "A few days afterward he had made them, for he said: 'Miss Mary, you may visit Madame Jaubert; she is a perfectly proper person.' "I first flew to my husband's neck, and thence went to call upon Madame Jaubert.