"My fair countrywoman, who is sharing the captivity of her husband, formerly an officer in the army, is singularly attractive. If her features were not too pronounced and her form much too thin, she would be a very pretty woman. As it is, there is something remarkably airy and graceful in her figure, and very lively in her countenance. Still more lively is she in her manners. She is, indeed, one of the cleverest and most sarcastic women I ever knew, very agreeable when you are not yourself the object of her satire. In order to preserve her character for wit, she is not very scrupulous in her language; and in consequence of this an Englishman once ventured to make her an insulting proposal, upon which she very quietly caught up the poker and knocked him down, thus establishing her reputation in such a forcible manner that, whatever she has subsequently been bold enough to say, she is quite certain of being considered a perfect Diana. "An adventure occurred to her which would be amusing if I could tell it in her own language. On one of the coldest nights of a severe winter she left her apartments to go to one of our Verdun balls. Her husband pleaded a severe headache as an excuse for not accompanying her; and, that her amusement might not be disturbed by any disagreeable suspicions, he actually retired to bed and enacted the part of a sick man so well that he eluded even her penetrating glance. No sooner, however, had the carriage driven off which conveyed her to the ball, than up jumped the sick man, dressed himself and set off to the club in order to indulge his darling passion for play. At an hour rather earlier than he had calculated upon, his wife left the ball, doubtless anxious to look after her invalid husband. She was driven home by a friend, and in order to inconvenience the latter as little as possible, she got out of the carriage without waiting for the house-door to be opened, and allowed her friend to drive away. It was a piercingly cold night, the ground was covered with snow, and she picked her way carefully up the steps and then felt in her pocket for her _passe-partout_. To her horror she discovered it was not there, she had forgotten to take it out with her! She used all her efforts to rouse her sleeping husband or some of the inmates, but in vain. No resource remained but for her to walk, quarterdeck, in her satin shoes and ball dress, the bodice of which, to make matters worse, was generally very décolleté. "While engaged in this truly miserable occupation, who should come up but her husband, returning from his club! Had he had the key in his pocket much might have been forgiven him, but he, too, had forgotten it. He was obliged, therefore, to join his wife's promenade before the door of their lodgings, and submit to a snowy curtain-lecture, till dawn broke, and the miserable, shivering couple were at last able to make themselves heard by the inmates of the house."