Dress, dinners, fast horses, betting, gambling, and the elegant vices which follow in their train, are ten thousand fold worse than all the pleasant little sillinesses of which Araminta may be guilty. The extremely fashionable young woman is pitiable, but she is only trying to make herself look handsome, and that is the object of her life; but the extremely fashionable young man is disgusting, because he has no right to look pretty, and is simply squandering away opportunities he has no right to waste." Old Blobbs, as is his wont, grew excited as he talked, and, bringing his fist down upon the table with a vim which made the glasses fairly dance in their fright, and sent the condiments of the castor and the contents of the sugar bowl into promiscuous ruin, added: "Yes sir! a man with nothing to do but to entertain himself and exhibit himself to society, is the most contemptible object on God's footstool, and the sooner he gets off from it, and makes room for somebody else, the better." And here he grew slightly personal, and very red as to the face. "Yes sir! You, Mr. Fitz-Herbert, holding up the mantel-piece! You think you are of some importance in the world, and yet I will wager that your direst responsibility to-day will be the parting of your back hair. I will wager that you never had an opinion in your life of more consequence than the relative merits of Macassar and Ursine! I will wager that you are not capable of feeling any distress keener than the anxiety of a doubt relative to the exact condition of your neck-tie. I will wager that Timothy Maloney, scraping dirt on the avenue to-day, although he may get drunk to-night and beat his wife, like the brute that he is, is of more service to the world than you are. That is my opinion of you, Mr. Fitz-what's-your-name, and if an opinion on any conceivable subject can be of any service to you, you are heartily welcome to it, sir. I repeat it, welcome to it, sir." I think Fitz-Herbert got an idea through his head that Old Blobbs was talking about him, for he actually took his tooth-pick out of his mouth and himself out of the room. December 5, 1868. _DEATH OF THE MAIDEN AUNT._ A little black-bordered billet reached us yesterday, and a cloud has settled down upon all of us, for it brought the news of the death of the Maiden Aunt. She died in the night, by the side of the sea, which she always loved, and the last sounds she heard were its waves moaning on the beach, as her own life ebbed away on the strand of death; and, after that, such music as Raphael's St. Cecilia would sing, or the angels who hover around his Madonnas.