The old devotion to the sex is not so exclusively the occupation of a French _salon_ as it was probably half a century since. I have been in several, where the men were grouped in a corner talking politics, while the women amused each other as best they could, in cold, formal lines, looking like so many figures placed there to show off the latest modes of the toilette. I do not say this is absolutely common, but it is less rare than you might be apt to suppose. I can tell you little of the habit of reading manuscripts in society. Such things are certainly done, for I have been invited to be present on one or two occasions; but having a horror of such exhibitions, I make it a point to be indisposed, the choice lying between the megrims before or after them. Once, and once only, I have heard a poet recite his verses in a well-filled drawing-room; and though I have every reason to think him clever, my ear was so little accustomed to the language, that, in the mouthing of French recitation, I lost nearly all of it. I have had an odd pleasure in driving from one house to another, on particular evenings, in order to produce as strong contrasts as my limited visiting-list will procure. Having a fair opportunity a few nights since, in consequence of two or three invitations coming in for the evening on which several houses where I occasionally called were opened, I determined to make a night of it, in order to note the effect. As A---- did not know several of the people, I went alone, and you may possibly be amused with an account of my adventures: they shall be told.