It is divided in distinct departments, among
the sisters; each of whom is characterised at home by some laudatory
epithet, strikingly illustrative of what they would like to be. There is
Miss Tiptoe, such an amiable girl! that is, she has a large mouth, and a
Mallan in the middle of it. There is Jemima, "who enjoys such delicate
health "--_that_ is, she has no bust, and wears a scarf. Then there is
Grace, who is all for evening rambles, and the "Pilgrim of Love;" and
Fanny, who can _not_ help talking; and whom, in its turn, talking
certainly cannot help. They are remarkable for doing a little of
everything at all times. Whether it be designing on worsted or on
bachelors--whether concerting overtures musical or matrimonial; the same
pretty development of the shoulder through that troublesome scarf--the
same hasty confusion in drawing it on again, and referring to the watch to
see what time it is--displays the mind ever intent on the great object of
their career. But they seldom marry (unless, in desperation, their
cousins), for they despise the rank which they affect to have quitted--and
no man of sense ever loved a Tiptoe. So they continue at home until the
house is broken up; and then they retire in a galaxy to some provincial
Belle Vue-terrace or Prospect-place; where they endeavour to forestall the
bachelors with promiscuous orange-blossoms and maidenly susceptibilities.
We have characterised these heart-burning efforts after "station," as
originating with, and maintained by, the female branches of the family;
and they are so--but, nevertheless, their influence on the young men is no
less destructive than certain. It is a fact, that, the more restraint that
is inflicted on these individuals in the gilded drawing-room at home, the
more do they crave after the unshackled enjoyment of their animal
vulgarity abroad. Their principal characteristics are a love of large
plaids, and a choice vocabulary of popular idiomatic forms of speech; and
these will sufficiently define them in the saloons of the theatres and in
the cigar divans. But they are not ever thus. By no means. At home (which
does not naturally indicate their own house), having donned their "other
waistcoat" and their pin (emblematic of a blue hand grasping an egg, or of
a butterfly poised on a wheel)--pop! they are _gentlemen_. With the
hebdomadal sovereign straggling in the extreme verge of their
pockets--with the afternoon rebuke of the "principal," or peradvent