And as I write this, I am reminded, I scarce know why, of poor Mrs. HIGHFLYER. _Poor_ Mrs. HIGHFLYER! I hear somebody exclaim in astonishment. Why is she poor? Why must we pity her? Is she not rich? Do not the great and the titled throng to her parties during the London Season? Has she not entertained Princes in the country? What lot can be more enviable? Granted, I reply, as to the riches and the parties. But can it be seriously supposed that a life spent in a feverish struggle for recognition, its days and nights devoted to schemes for social advancement, to little plots by which Lady MOTTLING, the wife of the millionaire Member of Parliament, shall be out-witted; or Mrs. FURBER, the wife of the returned Australian, shall be made to pale her ineffectual fires; to conspiracies which shall end in a higher rung of the giddy ladder of party-giving ambition--can such a life, I ask, with all its petty miseries, its desperations, its snubs, and its successes no less perilous than desperation, be considered an enviable one? Ask Mrs. HIGHFLYER herself. Visit that poor lady, as she is laying her parallels for her tenth attempt to capture some stout and red-faced royalty for her dance or her country-house, and see for yourself how she feels. She may bear aloft a smiling face, but there is unhappiness in her heart, and all her glories are as nothing to her, because she has read in the _Weekly Treadmill_ that Lady MOTTLING'S latest party was attended by a Royal Duke, two Ambassadors, and a Kamtchatkan Chieftain. There is failure in the meanest shape. Was I right to pity her? Are there not, moreover, critics and literary celebrities who----but I dare too much, my pen refuses its office, so tremendous is the subject on which I have rashly entered. And with that, farewell. D. R. * * * * * EFFEMINACY OF THE AGE. Mr. JAMES PAYN says that "some boys are really missed at home." Well, _Mr. Punch_ has observed that some fond and foolish parents tog and tittivate their boys till they look behind like girls. But to "_miss_" them, as though they were maidens or barmaids is _too_ bad. To adapt KO-KO'S celebrated song, he would say:-- A boy may wear his hair in curls, or bear a pudding face, Some mothers, as you wist, that folly can't resist! Of true boy in dress and manners they may leave him scarce a trace, But he never should be "missed"--he never should be "missed." Maternal idiots molly-coddle little lads they own, Till they're girlish in demeanour, and effeminate in tone, But the _mater_ who her "TOMMY" spoils, and dresses like a guy, Till he doesn't think he crickets, and has no desire to try; Is a silly, weak anomaly who ought to be well hissed; Boys never should be "missy," and they never should be "missed." * * * * * Mrs. R. is delighted. "My youngest niece," she says, "has lately become engaged to a very illegible young man."