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did me. However, there will be no want, further on in this book, of ideal women—and just here I will give you a specimen, just to cheer you up, of two highly decent dames, whom I learned in those days to know and honour. These were Mrs. Pieper and Mrs. Schnieper. The first was a handsome woman in full maturity, with great blackish eyes, a great white forehead, false black hair, a bold, old Roman nose, and a mouth which was a guillotine for every good name. Indeed there could be no contrivance equal to that mouth for the speedy execution and death of a reputation. There was no prolonged struggle, no long-delayed preparation, if the best of characters once got between her teeth she smiled, but that smile was the fall of the axe, and honour was decapitated and the head rolled into the bag. She was always a pattern of propriety, honour, piety, and virtue. The same may be said in celebration of Mrs. Schnieper. She was a tender woman, with a little anxious bosom, generally curtained with a mournful thin gauze or crape, light blonde hair, and clear blue eyes, which gleamed in a frightfully crafty manner out of her white face. People said you could never hear her footfall, and indeed ere you knew it she often stood close by, and then vanished as silently as she came. Her smile, too, was death to any decent reputation,