The conversation of the society in which such women are found is far more interesting, far worthier of respect than that which is heard in fashionable society (and these women are fashionable) in "America." And this without any reproach to the latter. For how could it be otherwise than that women who are the daughters, sisters, and wives of men who are themselves highly educated, and who have the affairs of a great empire, if not in their hands, at least upon their minds, should in all that can be acquired by intercourse with such men be superior to others most of whom bear the same relations to men who are necessarily inferior in all these respects, who are absorbed in business, and know little beyond their business except what can be learned from the hurried reading of newspapers? In England there is not only accumulated wealth, but accumulated culture; and of this the result appears not only in the men, but in the women. It could not be otherwise. Englishwomen are companions, and friends, and helps to their fathers, their husbands, to all the men of their household. They are not absorbed in the mere external affairs of society; and society is not entirely in their hands. Men, men of mature years, form the substance of English society; they give it its tone; women its grace and its ornamentation. Even in the Englishwoman's drawing-room the Englishman is looked up to and treated with deference. The talk and the tone must be such as pleases him. She finds her pleasure as well as her duty in making it such as pleases him. She is even there his companion, his friend, his help. No matter how clever or brilliant she may be, she does not seek _tenir salon_ like the French female _bel esprit_. No matter how beautiful or how fashionable she may be, she does not leave him out of her society arrangements; unless, indeed, in either case, she chooses to set propriety at naught and brave an accusation of "bad form." And indeed, should she attempt this she would probably soon be checked by a very decided interposition of marital authority. The result of all this is a soberer tone in mixed society than we are accustomed to, and the discussion of graver topics in general conversation.