The man who has the good fortune to see our New York belles in their morning or home attire, must have a heart made of quartz or granite if he resists their attractions. Their graceful forms, their intellectual and somewhat languishing expression of countenance, their bright and beaming eyes, their slender figures, which make one inclined to seize and hold them lest the wind should blow them away, their beautifully delicate hands and feet, compose a sum of attraction perfectly irresistible. The Boston ladies are perhaps better informed, and their features are usually more regular; but they have something Yankeeish about them, which I could never fancy, and, moreover, they are dreadful blue-stockings. The fair Philadelphians are rounder, more elastic, more Hebe-like, and unapproachable in the article of small-talk; but it is amongst the beauties of New York that romance writers should seek for their Julias and Alices. I am certain that if Cooper had made their acquaintance whilst writing his books, he would have torn up his manuscripts, and painted his heroines after a less wooden fashion. He can only have seen them on the Battery or in Broadway, where they are so buried and enveloped in finery that it is impossible to guess what they are really like. The two young ladies who had just entered the room, were shining examples of that system of over-dressing. They seemed to have put on at one time the three or four dresses worn in the course of the day by a London or Paris fashionable. It was now all over with my _tête-à-tête_. I could only be _de trop_ in the gossip of the four ladies, and I accordingly took my leave. As I passed before the parlour door on my way out, it was opened, and Mrs Bowsends beckoned me in. I entered, and found her husband also there. "Are you going away already, my dear Howard?" said the lady. "There are visitors up stairs." "Ah, Howard!" said Mrs Bowsends. "The workies[20] have carried the day," growled her husband. [Footnote 20: The slang term applied to the mechanics and labourers, a numerous and (at elections especially) a most important class in New York and Philadelphia.] "That horrid Staunton!" interrupted his better half. "Only think now'-- "Our side lost--completely floored. But you've heard of it, I suppose, Mister Howard?" I turned from one to the other in astonished perplexity, not knowing to which I ought to listen first. "I don't know how it is," whined the lady, "but that Mr Staunton becomes every day more odious to me. Only think now, of his having the effrontery to persist in running after Margaret! Hardly two thousand a-year "-- "Old Hickory is preparing to leave Hermitage already.[21] Bank shares have fallen half per cent in consequence," snarled her husband. [Footnote 21: The name of General Jackson's country-house and estate.] They were ringing the changes on poor Staunton and the new president.