attract attention in a crowd;
but still, girls well calculated to 'bring a man to book,' in the country.
Mr. Thackeray, who bound up all the home truths in circulation, and many
that exist only in the inner chambers of the heart, calling the whole
'Vanity Fair,' says, we think (though we don't exactly know where to lay
hand on the passage), that it is not your real striking beauties who are
the most dangerous--at all events, that do the most execution--but sly,
quiet sort of girls, who do not strike the beholder at first sight, but
steal insensibly upon him as he gets acquainted. The Miss Jawleyfords were
of this order. Seen in plain morning gowns, a man would meet them in the
street, without either turning round or making an observation, good, bad,
or indifferent; but in the close quarters of a country house, with all the
able assistance of first-rate London dresses, well flounced and set out,
each bent on doing the agreeable, they became dangerous. The Miss
Jawleyfords were uncommonly well got up, and Juliana, their mutual maid,
deserved great credit for the impartiality she displayed in arraying them.
There wasn't a halfpenny's worth of choice as to which was the best. This
was the more creditable to the maid, inasmuch as the dresses--sea-green
glaces--were rather dashed; and the worse they looked, the likelier they
would be to become her property. Half-dashed dresses, however, that would
look rather seedy by contrast, come out very fresh in the country,
especially in winter, when day begins to close in at four. And here we may
observe, what a dreary time is that which intervenes between the arrival of
a guest and the dinner hour, in the dead winter months in the country. The
English are a desperate people for overweighting their conversational
powers. They have no idea of penning up their small talk, and bringing it
to bear in generous flow upon one particular hour; but they keep dribbling
it out throughout the live-long day, wearying their listeners without
benefiting themselves--just as a careless waggoner scatters his load on the
road. Few people are insensible to the advantage of having their champagne
brisk, which can only be done by keeping the cork in; but few ever think of
keeping the cork of their own conversation in. See a Frenchman--how light
and buoyant he trips into a drawing-room, fresh from the satisfactory
scrutiny of the looking-glass, with all the news, and jokes, and
tittle-tattle of the day, in ful