To a novice in French society, there is certainly no circumstance so remarkable as the different position which the unmarried hold in the drawing-rooms of England and _les salons_ of France. With us, the prettiest things to look at, and the partners first sought for the dance, are the young girls. Brilliant in the perfection of their youthful bloom, graceful and gay as young fawns in every movement of the most essentially juvenile of all exercises, and eclipsing the light elegance of their own toilet by loveliness that leaves no eyes to study its decoration,--it is they who, in spite of diamonds and of blonde, of wedded beauty or of titled grace, ever appear to be the principal actors in a ball-room. But "they manage these matters" quite otherwise "in France." Unfortunately, it may sometimes happen among us, that a coquettish matron may be seen to lead the giddy waltz with more sprightliness than wisdom; but she always does it at the risk of being _mal notée_ in some way or other, more or less gravely, by almost every person present;--nay, I would by no means encourage her to be very certain that her tonish partner himself would not be better pleased to whirl round the mazy circle with one of the slight, light, sylph-like creatures he sees flying past him, than with the most fashionable married woman in London. But in Paris all this is totally reversed; and, what is strange enough, you will find in both countries that the reason assigned for the difference between them arises from national attention to good morals. On entering a French ball-room, instead of seeing the youngest and loveliest part of the company occupying the most conspicuous places, surrounded by the gayest men, and dressed with the most studied and becoming elegance, you must look for the young things quite in the background, soberly and quietly attired, and almost wholly eclipsed behind the more fully-blown beauties of their married friends. It is really marvellous, considering how very much prettier a girl is at eighteen than she can possibly be some dozen years afterwards, to see how completely fashion will nevertheless have its own way, making the worse positively appear the better beauty.