"Neither Vienna, nor Paris, nor St. Petersburgh, can rival this, Glenmore," he said, in the buoyancy of his gratification at the scene--"nothing that we ever beheld there is comparable with this--now is it?" "You have chosen your day well," replied the latter, "because, if it had been one of those three hundred and sixty-five days of mist which we generally enjoy in this metropolis, I should be disposed to dispute the point with you, and set the sunshine of a Parisian Spring against the brilliancy of our ladies' eyes and the splendour of their retinues. And would you not agree with me?" "Why, as a mere animal, I might, perhaps--climate does affect our _physique_, I will allow; but the national pride--" "Oh, bah! my dear D'Esterre your national pride in this instance has nothing to do with the matter;--and if the belles of Paris, or Vienna, or the Calmuck beauties of St. Petersburgh, could rival ours, their horses and coach-makers surpass what you see before you, and their summers be eternal, your _amour de la patrie_, I fear, would not long continue _to bias_ your judgment. No, no, D'Esterre, that feeling does not live on food like this; but we have other and better sources for it, as you well know and feel." Lord Albert's face shewed, in the generous glow which suffused it, a sense of his friend's appreciation of his sounder judgment; but he added, with a smile, "if you will not allow my present admiration to proceed from such a noble spring, at least do not accuse me of a reverse of sentiment, if I draw a comparison, in another respect, not at all favourable to my countrymen. Do you observe that line of men drawn up in battle array, and with impertinent nonchalance passing judgment on the women who drive before them? It must, or ought to be, at least, offensive to the pride and delicacy of the former; it would shock any European, and is a custom more suited to eastern despotism, and to the rules of an Asiatic slave mart, than to a civilized nation." "But do you conclude, therefore, that the men are alone to blame in this?" asked Lord Glenmore; "and is it to be presumed that they would have forgotten the courtesies and respect due from them, if women in general had been more true to the delicacies and decencies of their own sex. Do justice to the men while you blame the practice of the day, and acknowledge, that if the nod, or motion of the hand, or impertinent glance of recognition now takes place of the bow and respectful salutation of other times, yet that there must have been a sufferance of the change, if not an encouragement of it, and an equal alteration of manners on the other hand, or it would never have been."