Bon ami, do you consider the possession of sisters an agreeable addition to anybody's existence? _I_ hold it very intensely the reverse. Who pats a man down so spitefully as his sisters? Who refuses so obstinately to see any good in the Nazarene they have known from their nurseries? Who snubs him so contumaciously, when he's a little chap in jackets and they young ladies already out? Who worries him so pertinaciously to marry their pet friend, "who has ten thousand a year, dear! Red hair? I'm sure she has not! It's the most lovely auburn! But you never see any beauty in _refined_ women!" Who, if you incline towards a pretty little ineligible, rakes up so laboriously every scrap of gossip detrimental to her, and pours into your ear the delightful intelligence that she has been engaged to Powell of the Grays, is a shocking flirt, wears false teeth, is full five years older than she says she is, and has most objectionable connections? Who, I should like to know, does any and all of these things, my good fellow, so amiably and unremittingly as your sisters? till--some day of grace, perhaps--you make a telling speech at St. Stephen's, and fling a second-hand aroma of distinction upon them; or marry a co-heiress and lady-in-her-own-right, and they _raffolent_ of that charming creature, speculating on the desirability of being invited to your house when the men are down for September. Then, what a dear fellow you become! they always _were_ so fond of you! a little wild! oh, yes! but they are _so_ glad you are changed, and think more seriously now! it was only from a _real_ interest in your welfare that they used to grieve, &c., &c.