"Here!" he exclaimed, in a tone of horror: "Do you really imagine that in France, where we pride ourselves on making the destiny of our women the happiest in the world,--do you really imagine that we suffer a set of unhappy, innocent, helpless girls to drop, as it were, out of society into the _néant_ of celibacy, as you do? God keep us from such barbarity!" "But how can you help it? It is impossible but that circumstances must arise to keep many of your men single; and if the numbers be equally balanced, it follows that there must be single women too." "It may seem so; but the fact is otherwise: we have no single women." "What, then, becomes of them?" "I know not; but were any Frenchwoman to find herself so circumstanced, depend upon it she would drown herself." "I know one such, however," said a lady who was with us: "Mademoiselle Isabelle B*** is an old maid." "Est-il possible!" cried the gentleman, in a tone that made me laugh very heartily. "And how old is she, this unhappy Mademoiselle Isabelle?" "I do not know exactly," replied the lady; "but I think she must be considerably past thirty." "C'est une horreur!" he exclaimed again; adding, rather mysteriously, in a half-whisper, "Trust me, she will not bear it long!" * * * * * I had certainly forgotten Mademoiselle Isabelle and all about her, when I again met the lady who had named her as the one sole existing old maid of France. While conversing with her the other day on many things which had passed when we were last together, she asked me if I remembered this conversation. I assured her that I had forgotten no part of it. "Well, then," said she, "I must tell you what happened to me about three months after it took place. I was invited with my husband to pay a visit at the house of a friend in the country,--the same house where I had formerly seen the Mademoiselle Isabelle B*** whom I had named to you. While playing _écarté_ with our host in the evening, I recollected our conversation in the Gardens of the Luxembourg, and inquired for the lady who had been named in it. "'Is it possible that you have not heard what has happened to her?' he replied. "'No, indeed; I have heard nothing. Is she married, then?' "'Married!... Alas, no! she has _drowned herself_!'" Terrible as this dénouement was, it could not be heard with the solemn gravity it called for, after what had been said respecting her. Was ever coincidence more strange! My friend told me, that on her return to Paris she mentioned this catastrophe to the gentleman who had seemed to predict it; when the information was received by an exclamation quite in character,--"God be praised! then she is out of her misery!"