JULY 11.

Madame M-- is very ill. I pray for her recovery, because Charlotte
shares my sufferings. I see her occasionally at my friend's house,
and to-day she has told me the strangest circumstance. Old M--
is a covetous, miserly fellow, who has long worried and annoyed
the poor lady sadly; but she has borne her afflictions patiently.
A few days ago, when the physician informed us that her recovery
was hopeless, she sent for her husband (Charlotte was present),
and addressed him thus: "I have something to confess, which, after
my decease, may occasion trouble and confusion. I have hitherto
conducted your household as frugally and economically as possible,
but you must pardon me for having defrauded you for thirty years.
At the commencement of our married life, you allowed a small sum
for the wants of the kitchen, and the other household expenses.
When our establishment increased and our property grew larger, I
could not persuade you to increase the weekly allowance in proportion:
in short, you know, that, when our wants were greatest, you required
me to supply everything with seven florins a week. I took the
money from you without an observation, but made up the weekly
deficiency from the money-chest; as nobody would suspect your wife
of robbing the household bank. But I have wasted nothing, and
should have been content to meet my eternal Judge without this
confession, if she, upon whom the management of your establishment
will devolve after my decease, would be free from embarrassment
upon your insisting that the allowance made to me, your former
wife, was sufficient."

I talked with Charlotte of the inconceivable manner in which men