employs and pays her scarcely dare give an order without her. Speaking on this subject a few days ago with a distinguished and mild-tempered gentleman, who has long ceased to expect any comfort or pleasure in the magnificent house his wealth pays for, but which under its present government might as well be a hotel where he is sometimes allowed to take the head of the table, he said to me, with an air of quiet resignation:--“Ladies have so many more interests nowadays than in my father’s time. They do so many things. It is really bewildering! My wife, for example, is always out. She has so many engagements. She has scarcely five minutes to herself, and is often quite knocked up with fatigue and excitement. She has no time to attend to housekeeping, and of course the children are almost entirely with their nurse and governess.” This description applies to most households of a fashionable or “smart” character, and shows what a topsy-turveydom of the laws of Nature is allowed to pass muster, and to even meet with general approval. The “wife” of whom my honourable and distinguished friend spoke to me, rises languidly from her bed at eleven, and occupies all her time till two o’clock in dressing, manicuring, “transforming” and “massaging.” She also receives and sends a few telegrams. At two o’clock she goes out in her carriage and lunches with some chosen intimates at one or other of the fashionable restaurants. Lunch over, she returns home and lies down for an hour. Then she arrays herself in an elaborate tea gown and receives a favoured few in her boudoir, where over a cup of tea she assists to tear into piecemeal portions the characters of her dearest friends. Another “rest” and again the business of the toilette is resumed. When _en grande tenue_ she either goes out to dinner, or entertains a large party of guests at her own table. A _tête-à-tête_ meal with her husband would appear to her in the light of a positive calamity. She stays up playing “Bridge” till two or three o’clock in the morning, and retires to bed more or less exhausted, and can only sleep with the aid of narcotics. She resumes the same useless existence, and perpetrates the same wicked waste of time again the next day and every day. Her children she scarcely sees, and the management of her house is entirely removed from her hands. The housekeeper takes all the accounts to her husband, who meekly pays the same, and lives for the most part at his club, or at the houses of his various sporting friends. “Home” is for him a mere farce. He knew what it was in his mother’s day, when his grand old historical seat was a home indeed, and all the members of the family, young and old, looked upon it as the chief centre of attraction, and the garnering-point of love and faith and confidence; but since he grew up to manhood, and took for his life-partner a rapid lady of the new Motor-School of Morals, he stands like Marius among the ruins of