The dignified and graceful influence which married women, among us, exercise over the tone of manners, uniting the duties of home to the charms of social life, and bearing, at once, like the orange-tree, the fair fruits of maturity with the blossoms of their spring, is utterly unknown here. Married women are either house-drudges and nursery-maids, or, if they appear in society, comparative ciphers; and the retiring, modest, youthful bearing, which among us distinguishes girls of fifteen or sixteen, is equally unknown. Society is entirely led by chits, who in England would be sitting behind a pinafore; the consequence is, that it has neither the elegance, refinement, nor the propriety which belongs to ours; but is a noisy, rackety, vulgar congregation of flirting boys and girls, alike without style or decorum.[43] When Mr. ---- was gone, practised till dinner-time. After dinner, practised for half an hour; marked journal, till time to go to the theatre; took coffee, and away. The house was crammed again, and the play better acted than I have ever seen it out of London, though Mrs. Candour had stuck upon her head a bunch of feathers which threatened the gods; and Lady Sneerwell had dragged all her hair off her face, which needed to be as pretty as it was, to endure such an exposure. I do not wonder the New Yorkians did not approve of my Lady Teazle. If, as ---- tells me, Mrs. ---- is their idea of the perfection of good-breeding, well may my delineation of a lady be condemned as "nothing particular." Yet I am sorry I must continue to lie under their censure, for I, unfortunately for myself, have seen ladies, "ripe and real," who, from all I can see, hear, and understand, differ widely from the good manners of their "beau ideal." The fact is, I am not "_genteel_" enough, and I am conscious of it. The play went off remarkably well. Came to bed at half-past eleven. * * * * * _Thursday, 18th._ Here is the end of October, the very mourning-time of the year with us, and my room is full of flowers, and the sun is so bright and powerful, that it is impossible to go out with a shawl, or without a parasol. Went to rehearsal at twelve; at two, came in and habited; and at half-past two, rode out with my father. We took the road to the Schuylkill at once, through Arch Street, which is a fine, broad, long street, running parallel with Chestnut Street. We walked along the road under the intense sunlight that made all things look sleepy around. Turning between some rising banks, through a defile where the road wound up a hill, we caught a glimpse of a white house standing on the sunny slope of a green rise. The undulating grounds around were all bathed in warm light, relieved only by the massy shadows of the thick woods that sheltered them. It was a bit of England. * * * * *