dred.' There lies the spell; pines and champagne who can resist,—even though through the medium of Lady Walsingham? How tired, how fat her poor ladyship looked! like Mont Blanc, she was covered with the crimson of evening."
"Nay, now, Edward," said Mr. Delawarr, "you were there yourself."
"Yes; and am I not just acting up to our great social principle—go first, and grumble afterwards? Besides, the fête was given not to pleasure, but to pretension—and pretension is a sort of general election, depending on universal suffrage, and subject to canvassing and criticism. Born a milkmaid, meant for a farmer's wife, why are Lady Walsingham's nature and fate at variance? Those red arms should have been celebrated for their skill in bacon, and her cheeses noted the country round. How comfortable she would have looked in her crimson shawl—how respectable in her flowered print! What can she have to do with French kid?—her gloves are her martyrs. That countenance shining through blonde—those elephantine ears, whose girandole of diamonds is the size of a chandelier in half the drawing-rooms of genteel residences for small families
