cursed major in a gig, going, as Lewis informed me, to take a drive in the country.—“Good morning!” cried the minx to me, with one of her bewitching smiles, as her gallant flourished his whip aloft, and the vehicles flew past, leaving me gazing after them in perfect rage.
“Well, well, women are still women, I perceive!” was the sage apothegm which hung upon my lips as I entered Mrs Waldmark’s house in miserable humour.
The house seemed a palace,—the staircases were adorned with vases of flowers,—magnificence and taste shone conspicuous wherever I turned my eyes,—and over the whole establishment a soothing silence and repose seemed to rest. An old valet de chambre received my name, and I heard him pass through a series of rooms before he announced it to his mistress. I had thus time to regain my self-possession, and to except my grandmother’s intimate friend from the sweeping censure I had just been passing on the sex. I then turned my thoughts upon Florentine, and was beginning to question the soundness of my judgment upon her, when an elegantly dressed maid made her appearance and invited me to enter a boudoir where she said her mistress would instantly join me.
The walls of this room were covered with family-pictures. What a modesty breathed in the features of the females,—all gravity,—all retirement,—all dignity,—truly the women of the present day, I could not help thinking to myself, were a degenerate race, when I gazed upon the staid beauties which hung around me! These were women, thought I, who deserved man’s love,—they led a life of virtuous retirement,—and never suffered themselves to be driven about in gigs by majors! What modesty, and yet what conscious dignity sat on the brow of that beauty in the apple-green gown! What a lovely and yet what a chaste countenance was hers of the white flowered negligeé! How sweet, and yet how awfully prudent and wise was yonder mother of a family in her magnificent lace gown! What a mild angelic countenance did
