thrown away on unappreciative women. It is, however, the only piece of elegance--if elegance it can be called--indulged in by the true "masher." And beyond it he never soars. He does not know how to lift his hat gracefully; he does not know how to enter a room (without looking vaguely surprised or beamingly idiotic), or leave it again with any touch of affable dignity. His movements are generally stiff and ungainly to the very last degree, and, worst of all, he seldom has any brains to make up for his lack of breeding. A good position from whence to observe the manners of the time is close to the right hand of the Premier on the evening of a great crush at the Foreign Office. If courtly Lord Salisbury be there, you get in his bow, smile, and cordial handshake the finest essence of diplomatic urbanity and ease. But when you have exchanged greetings with him and his gracious lady you have seen nearly all you shall see of "manner." The throng come tumbling in helter-skelter, treading on each other's heels, for all the world like an untrained crowd of the "bas-peuple," all heated, all flustered, all vaguely staring ahead. Ambassadors, foreign princes, military dignitaries, jerk their heads spasmodically on entering the rooms, but evidently have no proper notion of a bow, while some of them let their arms hang stiffly down at their sides, and proffer a salutation that seems as though it were the result of a galvanic wire working their spines by some curious patent process not yet quite perfected. And the women!--the poets' goddesses! They arrive in very ungoddess-like bundles of rich clothing, some waddling, some ambling, some sidling, but only a rare few, a dozen at most, _walking_, or carrying themselves as being at all superior to their gowns. Most of these "fair" forget to curtsey properly to their distinguished entertainers, and the general impression made on the mind of an observer in looking at the "manner" of their entrance is distinctly unpleasing. Most of them wear far too many diamonds, a notable sign of egregious bad taste. A woman I saw there on one occasion wore a sort of dish-cover of diamonds on her head. (A friend told me it was a "garland"; it may have been, but it looked like a dish-cover.) Her hair was straight and flat, and stuck close to her scalp, and beneath the gorgeous headpiece of jewels was a fat red face profusely adorned with wrinkles and pimples, on which the diamonds cast a cruel glare. "Alas, good soul," I thought, as she went glittering past, "thou hast fallen on the most evil hour of all thy span--the fateful time when thy jewels are preferable to thyself!"--though, truly, as an unnoteworthy personage, I may here remark that I do not like diamonds. I own that a few choice stones, finely set and sparkling among old lace, are effective, but the woman who can wear a soft white gown without any ornaments save natural flowers would always carry away the palm of true distinction for me.