Again: I don't like to hear Miss Pertness abusing Captain Rover, and calling him an impudent fellow and a coxcomb in so spiteful a tone; especially when I know that a few evenings back she danced with him nearly every quadrille, and that she is now curling her pretty lip simply because Miss Flirt's sparkling eyes have bewitched the Captain for a time. Nor should Miss Pertness run across the room to Miss Prude (whom she laughs at for "dressing like a girl of eighteen, when all the world knows she's thirty, if she's a day"), to point out how the said Miss Flirt is coquetting with the said Captain Rover. Rest assured, my dear creatures, when you can say nothing good of any one, the best way is to keep your pretty mouths closed, and to say nothing at all. Talk any little innocent nonsense you like that is natural to you; but do not, for goodness sake, be satirical or ill-natured. Leave that to philanthropists. Above all, don't flirt _too_ much: it's very dangerous, and may ruin your prospects in the world. For rely upon it, that though most men like flirts very well for an evening, they would hardly think of linking themselves to one for a lifetime. Moreover, don't affect blueness, or music-madness, or any kind of literary or scientific mania: though if you must, for mercy sake, don't be silly enough to believe that you show your intellect by neglecting your dress or personal appearance. Philosophy and Polkas are very distinct things; so either throw up one or the other; for the song that says, "I must have lov'd thee hadst thou not been fair," is one of those fictions that Bunn and the other British Poets have been in the habit of getting set to music, and foisting on the public from time immemorial. Now, adieu! and though I am quite aware that the main object of your lives is to make us the slaves of your charms, and then to render us miserable by marrying us (the bare idea sets us trembling), still we wish you success the most brilliant. May Park phaetons, opera-boxes, diamond suites, and even coronets and plain gold rings, be showered at your dear little feet; and, above all, may you be happy, whether your wedding-cards bear the address of Belgrave Square or Clapham Common. Yours, ever Platonically, ALBERT DE BERLINS. [Illustration: THE BANQUET OF THE BLACK DOLLS In commemoration of the Reduction of the Duty on Rags. ] [Illustration: The Cooks of England offering up their Kitchen Stuff to their Black Idol. ] [Illustration: It shall have all the kitchen stuff—so it shall. ] [Illustration: A Lover of Grease. ] DE BLACK DOLLIBUS.