ts, the peeresses
wearing coronets of diamonds--most of them being fairly
ablaze with diamonds on head and neck. If the daylight was
not very favorable to the shoulders or complexions of some of
these noble dames, the gorgeousness of their costumes and the
glitter of their precious stones served to divert attention
from the defects of nature or the ravages of time.... Not
many of these ladies in the House were very pretty, although
here and there was a face such as makes one stop short and
hold one's breath, and wonder at the divine perfection of
nature's handiwork when she is at her best.... As for the old
bald-headed gentlemen, some of them very short and stumpy,
they looked painfully like a collection of 'senators' in some
opera bouffe. One of them in particular, with four ermine
bars on his cloak, denoting his high rank, was exactly like
the funny-looking dummy Englishman which the French delight
to exhibit in their farces. He had very little hair left to
boast of, and that little was very red, and his face was
round and red also, and he was altogether so comic a little
man that one could not look at him without a smile. I could
not find out who he was till the royal procession entered,
when he suddenly reappeared in great pomp and state, standing
on the throne by the side of her Majesty's chair and carrying
the 'Cap of Maintenance.' Then I knew that he was the Marquis
of Winchester--fourteenth of that ilk--John Paulet by name,
and the Premier Marquis of England. So much for appearances."

Mr. Jennings, it should be remembered, is an Englishman; but he
lived eight or ten years in New York; and I may be pardoned for
saying that he carried away a constant reminder of "American"
beauty, and a standard of comparison which would be likely to
make him fastidious.

A New England man now living in England, who made his house very
delightful to me, first by the presence of himself and his family, and
next by the kindest and most considerate hospitality, is an ever
present rebuke of the stoutest sort to the British notion of the
physical degeneracy of the English race in "America." He, a Yankee of
the old Puritan emigration, is five feet ten and a ha