And as the cups go round and the dear old creatures become inspired with the delicate aroma, how they will compare their rheumatisms, and backaches, and headaches, and neuralgias--those inevitable signs that the silver cords are growing looser, and that the pitchers will soon be broken at the fountains! How they will yearn after the days when they were young, and lament the decadence of the present! How they will recall the scenes of fifty years ago! (Here the maiden aunt let her eyes fall, and I fancied her lips quivered some). How they will indulge in just the slightest gossip in the world, meantime mysteriously shaking their frosty heads, but just as harmless as the rage of Mignon's canary! How they will analyze and dissect the last new baby in the neighborhood, and lament over the weakness of its mother who will allow it to eat anything and everything! How they will deprecate the new-fangled notions of the young pastor who has just succeeded old Parson Tenthly, lately called home! It is a mortifying fact that young Pastor Primrose _does_ prefer to visit Blanche and Celeste, who dote upon him and make book-marks and slippers for him, rather than be obliged to listen to the catalogues of the old ladies' physical and theological complaints. You see, Blanche and Celeste are not a severe tax upon his theological resources, while the old ladies are. Neither can the old ladies see why it is necessary that the young clergyman should be so particular about his back hair and the immaculateness of his neck-tie. February 22, 1868. _A MASQUE._ Did you ask me if the Masquerade, this week, was a success? Considering that nine-tenths of the people who go to balls are idiots; that carnival folly without carnival license is Hamlet without Hamlet; that only they in whose veins the blood is tropical understand the real _esprit_ of the _bal masque_; and that among our masques every man insists upon being a Harlequin and every woman a nondescript, showing the inevitable tendency of human nature;--it was a success. It is impossible for Boosey in a masque to feel tropical. Champagne, and not blood, is the natural current through his veins. Disguised as a gorgeous Harlequin, in cap and bells, he is not at home. He is inchoate, crude and lonesome. He may talk soft things to the unknown Blanche, hanging upon his arm in the black tarletan, gold stars and crescent, but the liquid eyes and beaming face tell no story through the grinning, goggle-eyed pasteboard, and do not disturb the placidity of the manly breast of Harlequin, or make any intellectual impression upon him, further than to confirm us in our original statement that he is an idiot. What Boosey may do when the masques are off and church-yards begin to yawn, as he and the unknown Blanche say matins at the shrine of the jolly King Gambrinus, concerns us not. Neither does it concern you who are reading these lines, who never take your masque off at all.