s height is here--I am not going to dispute it. Nor
will I say papa is quite in the wrong when he cries shame on some of the
costumes one meets on the Boulevards. My dear, short skirts and grey
hair do _not_ go well together. I cannot even bear to think of
grand-mamma showing her ankles and Hessian boots! But what vexes and
enrages me is the injustice of the sudden outcry. Where has the slang
come from? Pray who brought it into the drawing-room? How is it that
girls delight in stable-talk, and imitate men in their dress and
manners? We cannot deny that the domestic virtues have suffered in these
fast days, nor that wife and husband go different ways too much: but are
we to bear all the blame? Did _we_ build the clubs, I wonder? Did you or
I invent racing, and betting, and gambling? Do _you_ like being lonely,
as you are, my dear? When women go wrong, who leads the way? The pace is
very fast now, and we _do_ give more time to dress, and that sort of
thing than our mothers did. I own I'm a heavy hand at pastry, and mamma
is a light one. I couldn't tell you how many shirts papa has. I should
be puzzled to make my own dresses. I hate needlework. But are we
monsters for all this? Papa doesn't grumble _very_ much. He has his
pleasures, I'm sure. He dined out four times the week we came away. He
was at the Casino in the Rue St. Honore last night, and came home with
such an account of it that I am quite posted up in the manners and
costumes of _ces dames_, yes, and the _lower_ class of them. The mean
creature who has been writing in the _Saturday Review_ gives us no
benefit of clergy. We have driven our brothers out into the night; we
have sent our lovers to Newmarket; we have implored our husbands (that
is, _we_ who have got husbands,) not to come home to dinner, because we
have more agreeable company which we have provided for ourselves. Girls
talk slang, I know--perhaps they taught their brothers! I suppose mamma
taught papa to describe a woman in the _Bois_ as 'no end of a swell,'
and when he is in the least put out to swear at her.

[Illustration: THE INFLEXIBLE "MEESSES ANGLAISES."

_They are not impressionable, but they will stoop to "field sports."_]

"Now, my dear, shall I give you _my_ idea of the mischief? Papa thinks I
go about with my eyes shut; that I observe nothing--except the bonnet
shops. I say the paint, the chignons, the hoops, and the
morals--whatever they may be--start from here. My ears absolutely
tingl