* * * * * Correctly speaking, there are few servants in England; there are young ladies (pronounced _laïdies_) who, for a certain indemnity which they seldom deserve, consent to black your boots, clean your knives, wash dishes, and at the price of your tranquillity, save you the trouble of doing some rather disagreeable things, which you could easily do for yourself, if you had been taught better principles of equality in your youth, and had been brought up in habits more in accordance with the progress of democracy. In America, among John Bull's cousins, you find no more servants: there are lady-helps whom the mistress of the house treats on terms of equality. The negro alone still consents, for a consideration, to lend the boots of the Yankee a little of the brilliant ebony of his own ugly muzzle. The lady-helps require references. Before engaging themselves, they make inquiries of the lady-helps who have preceded them, as to the character of the lady of the house, who, it is to be hoped, will soon have to keep her character book. The consequence is that many American ladies have given up house-keeping and taken to living in hotels. A friend of mine visited America in 1876, the year of the Exhibition in Philadelphia. Provided with letters of introduction to several important personages in Washington, he looked forward to passing a pleasant time in American society. He soon received an invitation from a senator to go and pass a few days in his country-house near Washington. My friend accepted with alacrity, and repaired to the senator's residence on the following Saturday: it was a fine country house, it appears. After a very pleasant evening, spent with the family, he retired to his room, and went to bed, charmed with the two pretty daughters of his host, between whom he had had the pleasure of sitting, at table. Next morning, he rose, and after making an irreproachable toilette, gently opened the door to seize his boots. Great was his surprise to see them just in the same condition as they were the night before, when he had put them outside the door. They had not been touched. Was it an oversight or a mystification? What was to be done? My good friend was lost in conjecture, when the senator happened to come up, and seeing his guest's rueful countenance, tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and said: "My dear fellow, how careless I am! I quite forgot to tell you last night where to find the brushes and blacking." But let us return to the daughters of John Bull.