ignorance, silliness, or stupidity, that they are often quite harmless and inoffensive, and even qualified to shine with a mild reflected lustre in rural society in the autumn. Certain immutable laws made and provided by society against bores are brought sooner or later to their knowledge. They do not tell stories more than five minutes long in the narration, nor rehearse jokes till they fancy they can recall the point, nor entertain their friends by an abridgment of their own pedigree, or by a catalogue of the ages, names, heights, and attainments in the Latin grammar of their hopeful offspring. To all this sort of thing the miserable visitor in the country is liable to be subjected in every house the threshold of which he may venture to cross; for, even if his host and hostess be the most delightful people, they generally have some old uncle or aunt, or privileged and pompous neighbor, with whom nobody has ever dared to interfere in his ruthless exercise of the power to bore, and who will fasten on a new-comer just as mosquitoes do on fresh arrivals at a seaport after having tormented all the old inhabitants. And if London Bores are as lions with drawn teeth and clipped claws, London pleasant people on the other hand are beyond any doubt the pleasantest in the world; more true and kind and less eaten up by vanity and egotism than Parisians, and twice as agile-minded as the very cleverest German. Again, a great charm of London is that wealth is of so much less social weight there than anywhere else. It is singular what misapprehensions are current on this subject, and how apt are country people to say that money is everything in town, whereas the exact converse of the proposition is nearer the truth. In a country neighborhood, the man who lives in the largest house, drives the handsomest horses, and gives the most luxurious entertainments is allowed with little question to assume a prominent position, be he never so dull and never so vulgar; and, though respect will still be paid to well-born and well-bred people of diminished or narrow fortune, their position as regards their _nouveau riche_ neighbors is every year less dignified or agreeable. Quite on the contrary in town: with no income beyond what is needful to subscribe to a club and wear a good coat, a man may take his place (hundreds _do_ so take a place) in the most delightful circles, welcomed by all for his own worth or agreeability, for the very simple and sufficient reason that people like his society and want nothing more from him. In a city where there are ten thousand people ready to give expensive dinners, it is not the possession of money enough to entertain guests which can by itself make the owner an important personage, or cause the world to overlook the fact that he is a snob; nor will the lack of wealth prevent those thousands who are on the look-out only for a pleasant and brilliant companion from cultivating one, be he never so poor. The