subjects are treated they would mingle a reprobation of the bad, and a due estimate of the opposite, if it ever occurred at all; but as surely would they be disappointed. Never were censors more lenient,--never were critics so charitable. The transgressions against good-breeding--the “gaucheries” of manner, the solecisms in dress, language, or demeanor--do indeed meet with sharp reproof and cutting sarcasm; but, in recompense for such severity, how gently do they deal with graver offences! For the felonies they can always discover “the attenuating circumstances;” for the petty larcenies of fashion they have nothing but whipcord. Amidst the various knots where such discussions were carried on, one was eminently conspicuous. It was around a handsome open carriage, whose horses, harnessing, and liveries were all in the most perfect taste. The equipage might possibly have been deemed showy in Hyde Park; but in the Bois de Boulogne or the Cascine it must be pronounced the acme of elegance. Whatever might have been the differences of national opinion on this point, there could assuredly have been none as to the beauty of those who occupied it. Though a considerable interval of years divided them, the aunt and her niece had a wonderful resemblance to each other. They were both--the rarest of all forms of beauty--blond Italians; that is, with light hair and soft gray eyes. They had a peculiar tint of skin, deeper and mellower than we see in Northern lands, and an expression of mingled seriousness and softness that only pertains to the South of Europe. There was a certain coquetry in the similarity of their dress, which in many parts was precisely alike; and although the niece was but fifteen, and the aunt above thirty, it needed not the aid of flattery to make many mistake one for the other.