ss-coat whose etherealized individuality broke rapturously forth in
the thrilling words, "When I was in Paris last summer"? Are we no more
to palpitate with ecstasy at the tones of that voice which was wont to
trill forth in liquid music from a curl-crested fountain of white
shoulders, saying: "Don't you remember, Mr. Thompsion, how the Guke of
Leeds larfed that day, at the Reception, when I told him that we
American ladies thought it was vulgar to say 'garters' out loud?" Alas!
my boy, our aristocracy is fading away like an abused exotic, and it is
not oftener than once in a season that the frequenter of our Republican
Court witnesses one incident to make him recognize the polished people
he once knew. About two months ago, at an evening party given by Mrs.
Senator ----, I did witness a social incident, showing that there is
still hope for the Republic. An interesting young mother, of not more
than sixty-two summers, attired in a babywaist and graduated flounces,
was standing near one of the doors of the music-room conversing with me
upon the moral character of her dearest female friend, when her gushing
daughter, a nymph not more than six pianos old, came pressing to her
side, and whispered behind her fan,--

"Mamma _cheri_, may I donse with young Waddle?"

The maternal girl smiled grimly at the fragile suppliant, and asked:

"How much is his celery, _ma petite_?"

"Nine hundred, mamma, in the Third Auditor's."

"Then tell him, _mon ange_, that you are engaged for the next set, and
wait until the thousand-dollar clerks come in. You know, _ma petite_,
what the Count Pistachio said to you at Avignon about giving
encouragement to anything less than four figures."

I could not avoid overhearing this conversation, my boy, for it was not
held in whispers, and I thought to myself, as I eyed the fashionable
pair, "The Republic still lives."

It is, however, with the foreign embassies at Washington, that the
genuine aristocratic spirit still holds its normal own; and when I
lately received an invitation from a certain convivial diplomatist of
the Set to be one of a select party of distinguished gentlemen at his
residence on a certain evening, I felt that there was still an
available balm in Gilead. Arriving in the rooms shortly before ten
o'clock, I found seven middle-aged gentlemen in cambric ruffles and
scratch-wigs assembled around the wine-table, all pledging the health
of the Venerable Gammon, who had come up from