evening pass without talking of her Malines lace and her Count d'Araignay. Odious people! they don't spare their backs, but they pinch their—"

   Here Tom upsets a coffee-cup over his white jean trousers, and another young gentleman bursts into a laugh, saying, "By Jove, that's a good 'un!"

   "George, my dear," says mamma, "had not you and your young friend better go into the garden? But mind, no fruit, or Dr. Glauber must be called in again immediately!" And we all go, and in ten minutes I and my brother are fighting in the stables.

   If, instead of listening to the matrons and their discourse, we had taken the opportunity of attending to the conversation of the Misses, we should have heard matter not a whit more interesting.

   First Miss.—"They were all three in blue crape; you never saw anything so odious. And I know for a certainty that they wore those dresses at Muddlebury, at the archery-ball, and I dare say they had them in town."

   Second Miss.—"Don't you think Jemima decidedly crooked? And those fair complexions, they freckle so, that really Miss Blanche ought to be called Miss Brown."

   Third Miss.—"He, he, he!"

   Fourth Miss.—"Don't you think Blanche is a pretty name?"

   First Miss.—"La! do you think so, dear? Why, it's my second name!"

   Second Miss.—"Then I'm sure Captain Travers thinks it a BEAUTIFUL name!"

   Third Miss.—"He, he, he!"

   Fourth Miss.—"What was he telling you at dinner that seemed to interest you so?"

   First Miss.—"O law, nothing!—that is, yes! Charles—that is,—Captain Travers, is a sweet poet, and was reciting to me some lines that he had composed upon a faded violet:—

   like thy something, I forget what it was; but his lines are sweet, and so original too! I wish that horrid Sir John Todcaster had not begun his story of the exciseman, for Lady Fitz-Boodle always quits the table when he begins."

   Third Miss.—"Do you like those tufts that gentlemen wear 

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