and especially
to "stump-speak," like men; next to an effeminate man there is nothing
so disagreeable as a mannish woman.

HERBERT. I heard one once address a legislative committee. The knowing
air, the familiar, jocular, smart manner, the nodding and winking
innuendoes, supposed to be those of a man "up to snuff," and au fait in
political wiles, were inexpressibly comical. And yet the exhibition
was pathetic, for it had the suggestive vulgarity of a woman in man's
clothes. The imitation is always a dreary failure.

THE MISTRESS. Such women are the rare exceptions. I am ready to defend
my sex; but I won't attempt to defend both sexes in one.

THE FIRE-TENDER. I have great hope that women will bring into the
newspaper an elevating influence; the common and sweet life of society
is much better fitted to entertain and instruct us than the exceptional
and extravagant. I confess (saving the Mistress's presence) that the
evening talk over the dessert at dinner is much more entertaining and
piquant than the morning paper, and often as important.

THE MISTRESS. I think the subject had better be changed.

MANDEVILLE. The person, not the subject. There is no entertainment
so full of quiet pleasure as the hearing a lady of cultivation and
refinement relate her day's experience in her daily rounds of calls,
charitable visits, shopping, errands of relief and condolence. The
evening budget is better than the finance minister's.

OUR NEXT DOOR. That's even so. My wife will pick up more news in six
hours than I can get in a week, and I'm fond of news.

MANDEVILLE. I don't mean gossip, by any means, or scandal. A woman of
culture skims over that like a bird, never touching it with the tip of a
wing. What she brings home is the freshness and brightness of life. She
touches everything so daintily, she hits off a character in a sentence,
she gives the pith of a dialogue without tediousness, she mimics without
vulgarity; her narration sparkles, but it does n't sting. The picture
of her day is full of vivacity, and it gives new value and freshness to
common things. If we could only have on the stage such actresses as we
have in the drawing-room!

THE FIRE-TENDER. We want something more of this grace, sprightliness,
and harmless play of the finer life of society in the newspaper.

OUR NEXT DOOR. I wonder Mandeville does n't marry, and become a
permanent subscriber to his embodied idea of a newspaper.

THE YOUNG LADY. Perhaps he do