Listen, my dears, for in that which you have just said lies your offence. Can damsels thus arrayed walk in the woods, climb the mountains (except in poetry)? Can they take even an ordinary, mild walk, without mortal terror of perilling their millinery? Must they not, therefore, "ride," morning, afternoon, and evening, everywhere, to the delectation of stable-keepers, and the consequent pecuniary depletion of the "beaux"? These beaux, whose fathers may be rich, but whose sons have yet to fill their individual coffers; these beaux, who have just so much to expend when they get away for a summer holiday, and who do not desire to pour it all into the pockets of the stable-keepers; these beaux, who can get vastly more fun out of their purses, and make them last longer, with a party of "the fellows,"—this is the reason that, with rare exceptions, you have to throw away these ravishing toilettes on your own sex, when you play croquet, or sit on the piazza, dreaming of the "coming man."

My dears, he wont come! He knows too much. He has seen his sister's milliner and mantua-maker bills, and heard the family discussions thereon; and though he acknowledges your fascinations even through all the absurd toggery you are doomed by fashion's slavery to have and to wear, he has yet to make the fortune to enable him to foot his angel's bills. So he runs away from you, discreetly; runs off fishing, or gunning, with "the fellows," and, wiser than you, comes home brown, hale, and hearty for the winter months, instead of perspiring at your side in tight boots and yellow kids.

Do you begin to understand? Now, my dears, if you have been ushered into the world in a coach and six, till your feet and hands have become paralyzed for want of use, that's your misfortune, not your fault, because that necessitates a rich husband. And as there are very few rich young husbands, you will have to bid good-by to your girlish ideal, and marry the bald-headed, gouty Mr. Smith, who was born at the same time as your own father. This, my dears, you will have to do, or face your nightmare, single blessedness.

I have looked at you playing croquet, without a coat-tail among you; I have seen you driving yourselves out in your pretty little phaetons; and though you put a brave face on it, I know very well what is going on under that gay little sash of yours; and I think it is a pity that you should have been brought up to so many artificial wants, that your heart must go hungry in life's spring-time because of them.

My dears, I never lacked beaux at your age. But a walk in the woods, or in the city either, involved no expense to my beaux. I could climb a fence, where there was no gate, or where there was either; I was not afraid of dew, or rain, because my dress was simple. My gifts were not diamonds, but flowers, or books. My mother would not have allowed me to ride with gentlemen, had they asked me. When they came to spend an evening, our tray of refreshments did not involve a "French cook." So you see, my dears, though I had no silk dresses, I had plenty of beaux, and a gay heart; and I enjoyed a sail with an old sun-bonnet over my curls, or a moonlight ramble, with a merry party, much better than you do "the German;" and half an hour was sufficient warning for me "to dress" for any kind of a party—indoors or out—because, unlike you, I was not bothered to choose from twenty dresses which to wear; and I will give you leave to ask any of my beaux, who are now grandfathers, if I was not able at that time to settle their accounts! And it is because I had such a good time that I feel vexed that your youth and prettiness should so often go a-begging—through no fault of yours; and you may show this to your mothers and tell them I say so.

In the country, too, matrons, we have full trunks and absent husbands.

It was a quiet little village; just such a place as you, madam, with your six children, sensibly clad in calico, would like to have enjoyed the sweet summer days in. There was no "dress;" there were no "hops," in hot halls, by gas-light; there were no masquerade balls. Everybody was in bed by ten o'clock, save a few smokers, who profaned the sweet, odorous quiet with their vile tobacco fumes. There was plenty of driving through the bewitching roads, plenty of walking, some gossip,—which I have ascertained has no sex—some croquet-ing and crochetting, but no coquetting, because there was a great vacuum where beaux should be. Altogether, the city residents of Frog-ville were a sensible set.

But, alas! one unlucky day the shrieking cars landed at the door of the principal boarding-house a woman. That was not an event of itself, but this woman was accompanied by many trunks. Nobody knew whence she came, but conjecture was rife as to the contents of the trunks. Breakfast, next morning, solved the mystery. Mrs. Fire-Fly—for she was a Mrs.—none the less dangerous for that—on the contrary!—swept into the dining-hall in a train about six yards long. The train was white and spotless; the floor was not. The lady carried her coffee to her lips, with diamond girdled fingers, steadily, with an eye to her delicate ribbons. Scipio, who handed her beefsteak over her shoulder, had no time to consider such trifles. Little puddles of milk lay in wait on the floor for that spotless train, dexteriously coiled, by its owner, like an anaconda under the table. Pools of milk, tea-drippings, and bits of omelette, dislodged from their moorings, by hot haste in serving, were dotted, here and there, in the path she would soon be called upon to mop on her exit. At length she rose! Her train followed at a respectful distance. The eyes of the dozen or two sensible women, clad in sensible raiment, followed that train. Its dainty owner, with a disdain of economy, born of many trunks, and their ample contents, did not so much as lift it with one of her jeweled fingers. On she swept, through the coffee-pools—through the gravy-drippings—through the milk-puddles, out into the hall.

The sensible women present looked after her spell-bound. Then they gazed into each other's eyes, and murmured, "Paris!" Alas! the serpent in fairest guise had entered the primitive Eden of Frog-ville. The sensible matrons looked now, through different spectacles, at their alpacas and calicoes. How mean in comparison! Their trimmings, how "dowdy"! The fit of their bodices, how awkward! Dinner-time came, with added newness and added splendors. Cobweb tissues, with frost-work trimmings, and train longer by two yards than the breakfast train. And such ribbons! And such jewelry! How tasteless was the beef that day; how disgusting the mutton; how prosaic their gingham-clad, rosy children; how tame and humdrum was life generally. And then, this dainty lady had "a maid." They had no "maids." They had never felt the need of a "maid" till now. How had they ever combed their tresses? How had they ever fastened their own dresses? Pshaw! their dresses! How unworthy the name—mere wrappers. Gracious! how miserable were these heretofore happy women. Never till now did they know how miserable they were. The dainty lady's husband, 'tis true, was not with her. She had to do without him; while they had theirs with them. Her husband was in the hot, smoky city, earning more money for more "Paris" dresses—that is, he was earning money during the day; what he did with his solitary evenings or nights, the dainty wife did not inquire. She was satisfied; she was brimming with content, that she alone, amid all these wives and mothers, had "Paris" dresses.

"I really must have some clothes," said one of the hitherto sensible matrons, "the next time I go into the country. I didn't know, till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how very shabby was my wardrobe."

"I would rather," said a friend at her elbow, "that you, the healthy mother of six healthy daughters, should have said: 'I didn't know, till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how sensible and befitting the country was my wardrobe; and how proper and right it was that my husband should be taking his rest in the country with me, instead of divorcing himself at the risk of our mutual peace, to furnish me with nine trunks full of Paris dresses.'"

"I have done nothing to-day but keep things straight in the house," you say wearily at the close of it. Do you call that nothing? Nothing that your children are healthy, and happy, and secured from evil influence? Nothing that neatness, and thrift, and wholesome food follow the touch of your finger-tips? Nothing that beauty in place of ugliness meets the eye of the cheerful little ones, in the plants at your window, in the picture on the wall? Nothing that home to them means home, and will always do so, to the end of life, what vicissitudes soever that may involve? Oh, careworn mother! is all this nothing? Is it nothing that over against your sometime-mistakes and sometime-discouragement shall be written, "She hath done what she could?"