"My golden locks Time hath to silver turned- And feed on prayers, that are old Age's alms." I wish some of our ancient, indecorous heroes of Rotten Row and the Clubs, and the Star and Garter at Richmond, would bear these simple and beautiful lines in memory. Let it be understood that you are to be courteous and amiable to all you meet in Pagoda Square, without, however, forming any violent friendships. A proud, disdainful girl is, in nine cases out of ten, either repulsive or ridiculous, and her hauteur is ascribed either to sulkiness, to conceit, to stupidity, or to mauvaise honte. The tenth case is an exception, and I think a sufficiently haughty demeanour not at all ill-placed in an exceedingly beautiful and accomplished young woman. To so splendid a palace we cannot grudge the guard of honour at the gate, and the emblazoned standard flaunting above the keep. Dusky Cleopatra must have her gorgeous galley, and must invoke Isis, and extend her hand now to Cæsar, now to Antony-the Masters of the world--and die at last disdaining young Octavius: invincible though vanquished. Beauteous Portia must stand on her haut pas, and treat the Prince of Morocco in as cavalier a manner as she choose; but who would not laugh to see Little Bo Peep with a great plume of ostrich-feathers on her head, and an embroidered tail of a train, and flapping a fan, whilst she seeks the sheep that carry their tails behind them? A shepherdess's crook, a little petticoat and bare feet, as you see Little Bo Peep garnished with, in Mr. Francis's tender, thoughtful, charming picture, are all that pretty and winning little maiden needs to make us love her. So carry not your head too high, my Louisa. You are not Cleopatra; you are not Portia, although you are bigger than Little Bo Peep, and wear the best of shoes and stockings. Don't be proud; don't be arrogant; in dress, in conversation, in demeanour, in love, in command to those beneath you. And ah! don't be proud in Religion. There are no reserved seats in Heaven; there is no giving half-a-crown to the pew-opener, or currying favour with the beadle; the gate of the Kingdom is too narrow for much crinoline, and Lazarus's callow brats may pass in while the Misses Dives are ostentatiously clamouring for entrance. Affectation is only the small change of Pride; the first may sometimes terrify, sometimes awe; the second only sickens, or makes people laugh. How eminently uncomfortable to herself and to those about her does a proud girl become; how men grin and guffaw, behind her back, at Miss Araminta's affectation and sentimental die-away airs! Do you know the women who make the wretchedest wives in the world? Not the termagants; their hearts are often as soft as toast and butter, and they could whip themselves for remorse as soon as their tempers are over. Not the jealous wives; so long as they keep their hands off red-hot pokers and sharp scissors their jealousies flatter a man's vanity, and act, besides, as a salutary check on him at all times; the husband is in a continual wholesome fear of being found out, and you may depend upon it that all men have, or have had, or will have, something—you see I underscore the "something"-to be detected in during their married life. Can we women lay our hands on our hearts and say that this, too, is not the case with us? Our existence is a tissue of deceits, some pretty and some very ugly to contemplate; and many a man knows no more of the state of his wife's heart than he does of the price of the lace sleeves she wears, or of the meat he is eating. He thinks he has gone to market and bought the Heart and the leg of Poor sillikin! he knows nothing of the mutton himself. secret clause in the treaty with Mr. Chopperblock, and that women will turn the market-penny in love as well as in the matters of millinery and butcher's meat. Don't think the Fools make the worst wives. There is often, in the most egregious idiot of a woman, a marvellous depth of patient, seeking affection in and looking up to the Being she thinks superior to herself. She is as one tossing in a cockboat on a dark sea on a stormy night, and looking hopefully, she scarcely knows why, to the beaming lighthouse to save her. She is wrecked, often; but sometimes those on shore hear her meek wail, and man the life-boat-manned only by a little infant, as it may be. The most foolish of the virgins grows wise in her degree, when, indeed, she first hears the cry of the child she has borne. My dear, the worst, the incorrigible wives are these the haughty, cold, equable, staid, indifferent, selfish woman, who looks on rigidly when her husband comes in wet through, and calmly opines that his steaming clothes will dim the gilding on the pictureframes; the woman who, when the man tells her that he is bankrupt and ruined, asks icily whether her quarterly allowance for dress will be continued to be paid with regularity; the wife who would refuse to visit her husband in prison on the ground that it is a "dreadful place," and who, should his long pent-up agony burst into a flood of tears, quietly remarks that she had better "leave the room;" the woman, in fact, who would have her corns cut on the day of ber first child's funeral. And next in horror to such a woman-and I have known scores of them-is the lackadaisical, die-away woman, who lies on a sofa all day, with her shoes off, and reads novels; who will not permit a cigar, a dog, or a pewter measure in her house; who drinks drams of eau de Cologne or sal volatile- a progressive course of tippling generally terminating in Cognac; who has hysterics and fainting-fits, and eats mutton-chops shortly afterwards; whose tears are as easily turned on as water from a boiler; who screams when she sees a grasshopper, won't go over a stile, can't eat sage and onions, is sea-sick on the way to Greenwich, and never enters her kitchen. Men don't bully or beat these women-they neglect and leave them; they are the women, I think, who are, in after life, distinguished for being handed fainting out of every place of public amusement, and for living in Boulogne and Champs Elysées boarding-houses, and travelling in railway carriages marked "for ladies only." In the whole catalogue of people whom a young lady ought not to know, I consider these most objectionable members of our sex as objects of special avoidance. Among the gentlemen whom you have found, or will find, in Pagoda Square, I should wish much to warn you against Irish barristers with red whiskers and ultra-Repeal tendencies. If you give them the slightest encouragement, they will bore you to death about the Wrongs of Ireland, Theobald Wolfe Tone, and the phantasmagoric Parliament in College Green. They go very little into society; and it is very probable that half an hour after they have made their bow to you they will be discussing the merits of your vocalisation and of your personal appearance over pipes and whiskey-punch in some tavern. Sir Charles said so, often. To do them justice, however, they always speak of women in terms of the most D enthusiastic reverence, and generally magnify a plain Miss into a Marchioness. But they have no money, and are generally impracticable. They never get the ear of the Bench; they never get beyond the sub-editorship of a newspaper (your papa took much interest in journalism, and had a share in the " Alfred" weekly sheet); they are inveterate. fortune-hunters, and when they do get married, it is generally to a dilapidated widow with a Chancery fortune, which competency-a costs-in-the-cause and perpetually bill-filing income-is about the genteelest form of pauperism and the most dignified state of beggary that I am acquainted with. I spoke of newspapers. My dear, avoid-shun as you would a plague-all professional literary men. An author, with a good Government appointment of eight hundred or a thousand a year, may be barely tolerated. The man may mean no harm, and may be occasionally serviceable. Against doctors, lawyers, clergymen, independent gentlemen, who have written books, I have no complaint to make. They resemble gentlefolks who are fond of participating now and then in private theatricals. But your bête noire should be the professional author,—the man who makes his living by his pen. Don't have anything to do with him. Stand afar off. Gather up your skirts when he approaches. Listen to his barking from the drawing-room; but don't go near him he bites. Of late years these persons have gone a great deal more into society than is conducive to its peace and respectability. One meets them almost everywhere, and hears of nothing but the eminent Mr. A. and the celebrated Mr. B. When I was young a very few only of the class I mention were in society. Doctor Southey, Mr. Theodore Crookback, and Mr. Tommy Moore were received in the first circles, though of different politics. I believe Sir Walter Scott-who had besides a reputable profession, that of the law, whereby to earn his |