carriage, assuring them they would be in time enough.” “But what about their dress, George?” said I. “You know I never can make any thing out of describing a lady’s dress. Mrs. Dilberry looked very choked-up, and melting and greasy, and had on that abominable frizzly cap that struck us all so last night; and Miss Esther Ann had on a white frock with old dark kid-gloves, and three brown cockades stuck on top of her head that made her look full six feet high; but Jane Louyza, as they call her, was the beauty! Her dress was one of those stiff, thin ones, that stand out like hogsheads, and are nearly as hard to bend. Such a crushing and pushing as there was to get it into the carriage, and down between the seats! Her neck was—I can’t tell you how bare, and her arms and hands ditto, only that on the latter she had little tight mitts, that looked like the skin tatooed. She had a wreath of artificial blue and purple roses on her head, and a quantity of ribbon flying in tags from each shoulder and from her back and front. But such arms and neck—so red and beefy!” “And where did you get seats?” “In one of the side boxes, three benches back—the very place I could have wished—but, as my luck would have it, a lady in the front row took sick, and her party left the theatre with her. Before I could have thought of such a thing, my fair charges pushed forward into the three vacant places, beckoning me to follow, and calling me by name loudly enough to be heard half over the house. Of course it drew all the eyes in the neighborhood upon them, and I observed that the Hallowells, and the Sewards, and the Wilkinses were in the next box; Joe Nicols was with them, and had the impudence to lean over and ask me, ‘Who the mischief have you here, George? country cousins, hey?’—and there they sat chattering and laughing at full voice, evidently greatly flattered by being so much stared at.” “But of course, you had a respite when the opera commenced?” “Just wait—as the old lady says. The curtain rose in a few minutes, and then each of them had to turn to me for explanations. ‘Dear me! is that one of your brag singers, the great Mrs. S——!’ said Miss Esther Ann, ‘how affected she is! Did you ever see any body roll her eyes so!’ ‘And what a mouth she has!’ said Jane Louisa, ‘you could almost jump down her throat! I don’t see any sense in such singing—Sarah Tibbets in our choir can go far ahead of that!’ ‘And how scandalous it is for a married woman to be looking up that way in a young man’s face,’ put in the old lady, ‘she surely must be painted up, such a color never was natural, and what loads of extravagant finery! I wonder what all her spangles cost?’