o give the reader some idea of the lady herself. Indeed, in
strict gallantry, I suspect that I ought to have introduced her first,
but she has already been upon the stage, and "made her obedience," as
sailors call it, to the audience; and, besides, age has claims that
ought to be attended to.

In person, then, Julia was not remarkably tall, (I don't like tall
women; "a man never ought to look _up_ to his wife for a kiss or for
advice;") her form had all that graceful and delicate roundness and
fullness of outline so irresistibly pleasing to the eye. "Man," says an
elegant writer upon natural history, contrasting the two sexes, "man is
most angular, woman most round." Euclid himself could not have detected
any thing angular in the faultless form of Julia Effingham; nothing
resembling his "Asses' Bridge," or his "Windmill" problems, in the fall
of her shoulders, the bend of her snowy neck, the delicate round of her
chin, the delicious fulness of her ripe lip, the easy turn of her rosy
cheeks, the graceful curve of her brow. Her nose was indeed a straight
Grecian one, but not geometrically straight.

It must be admitted, by the way, that there are more decidedly _good_
noses among women than among men. The latter are aquiline, Roman,
parrot, pug, snub, thick, thin, long, short, peaked, bottle--some with a
bump in the middle, some with a cleft, or fissure, and some with a
button, or knob, at the end, like that on a man-of-war's boat-hook. In
short, to describe all the various kinds of noses masculine, it would be
necessary for philologians to create a new batch of adjectives, as the
king of England does occasionally of peers.

I have already said, or meant to be understood to say, that Miss
Effingham was somewhat inclined to _embonpoint_. I do not pretend to
know the reason of this: perhaps leanness and emaciation were not
considered _genteel_ when she happened to be educated, as they are
unfortunately by too many of my fair countrywomen; perhaps she never
thought much about it; for I have always observed that very beautiful
women, who prefer revolving in the quiet circle of domestic happiness
and usefulness, are seldom or never very anxiously solicitous about
their beauty; and the consequence is, that they _are_ more beautiful,
and stand the attacks of time far better, than those who choose a life
of fashionable display, and court public admiration. Ladies may lace
tight, eat pickles, and drink vinegar, to make them gent