nown to be both poor and
extravagant, and an old bachelor-proprietor, nearly as old as Mr.
Hogarth, senior, and as unlikely to marry. Parties in the country were
greatly indebted to striplings and college students home for holidays
to represent the male sex. They could dance, and could do a little
flirtation, and thought much more of themselves than they ought to do;
but as for marrying, that was out of the question. An exchange of two
heiresses for one heir of Cross Hall could not but be considered to be
an advantageous one. It was not in human nature that the young ladies
themselves, and their fathers and mothers, and party-givers generally,
should not be eager to know Francis Hogarth, and be more than civil to
him. The court that is paid to any man who is believed to be in a
position to marry, is one of the most distressing features in British
society; it is most mischievous to the one sex, and degrading to the
other. Long, long may it be before we see anything like it in the
Australian colonies!

No doubt, if it is excusable anywhere, it is so in country or
provincial society in Scotland. "We cannot help spoiling the men"--says
a distressed party-giver in these latitudes, conscious that this state
of things is not right, and half-ashamed of herself for giving in to
it--"there are really so few of them." The sons of families of the
middle and upper classes as they grow up are sent out to India, to the
army, to America, or to the Australian colonies. Even when they do not
leave the kingdom, they leave the neighbourhood, and go to large towns,
where they may practise a profession or enter into business with some
chance of success. Their sisters remain at home with no business, no
profession, no object in life, and no hope of any change except through
marriage. Many of their contemporaries never return, but settle in the
colonies or die there; but, if they do return with money--perhaps with
broken constitutions and irritable tempers from India--they still
consider themselves too young to look at the women with whom they
flirted and danced before they left the old country, and select some
one of a different generation, who was perhaps a baby at that time.
Fathers and mothers see too clearly the advantages of an establishment
to object to the disparity of years and the state of the liver, while
the girl, fluttered into importance (as Madame de Vericourt says) by
presents, and jewels, and shawls, thinks herself a most fort