Shade of old Paul Pry Boston! what do I hear? Two--(well I declare, I am not sure whether they are ladies or women; I don’t understand these New York feminities). At any rate, they wear bonnets, and are telling the waiter to bring them “a bottle of Maraschino de Zara, some sponge-cake, and some brandy drops!” See them sip the cordial in their glasses, with the gusto of an old toper. See their eyes sparkle and their cheeks flush, and just hear their emancipated little tongues go. Wonder if their husbands know that they--but of course they don’t. However, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. They are probably turning down sherry cobblers, and eating oysters, at Florence’s; and their poor hungry children (while their parents are dainty-izing) are coming home hungry from school, to eat a fragmentary dinner, picked up at home by a lazy set of servants. Heigho! Ladies sipping wine in a public saloon! Pilgrim rock! hide yourself under-ground! Well, it is very shocking the number of married women who pass their time ruining their health in these saloons, devouring Parisian confectionary, and tainting their children’s blood with an appetite for strong drink. Oh, what a mockery of a home must theirs be! Heaven pity the children reared there, left to the chance training of vicious hirelings. APOLLO HYACINTH. “There is no better test of moral excellence, than the keenness of one’s sense, and the depth of one’s love, of all that is beautiful.”--_Donohue._ I don’t endorse that sentiment. I am acquainted with Apollo Hyacinth. I have read his prose, and I have read his poetry; and I have cried over both, till my heart was as soft as my head, and my eyes were as red as a rabbit’s. I have listened to him in public, when he was, by turns, witty, sparkling, satirical, pathetic, till I could have added a codicil to my will, and left him all my worldly possessions; and possibly you have done the same. He has, perhaps, grasped you cordially by the hand, and, with a beaming smile, urged you, in his musical voice, to “call on him and Mrs. Hyacinth;” and you have called: but, did you ever find him “in?” You have invited him to visit you, and have received a “gratified acceptance,” in his elegant chirography; but, _did he ever come_? He has borrowed money of you, in the most elegant manner possible; and, as he deposited it in his beautiful purse, he has assured you, in the choicest and most happily chosen language, that he “should never forget your kindness;” but, _did he ever pay_? Should you die to-morrow, Apollo would write a poetical obituary notice of you, which would raise the price of pocket-handkerchiefs; but should your widow call on him in the course of a month, to solicit his patronage to open a school, she would be told “he was out of town,” and that it was “quite uncertain when he would return.”