comes._

She had been bred to measure her actions by a standard which the
world may nominally admit, but which it leaves for the most part
unheeded. Worship, love, duty, as taught her by the devout study of
the sacred law which interprets and defines it--if these formed the
outward practice of her life, they were also its constant and
secret endeavor and occupation. She spoke but very seldom of her
religion, though it filled her heart and influenced all her
behavior. What must the world appear to such a person?--_The
Newcomes._

There are ladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed
entirely by all the gentlemen, and cut or slighted by all their
wives.... But while simple folks who are out of the world, or
country people with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in
their seeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off,
persons who are better instructed could inform them that these
envied ladies have no more chance of establishing themselves in
"Society," than the benighted squire's wife in Somersetshire, who
reads of their doings in the _Morning Post_. Men living about town
are aware of these awful truths. You hear how pitilessly many
ladies of seeming rank and wealth are excluded from this "Society."
The frantic efforts which they make to enter this circle, the
meannesses to which they submit, the insults which they undergo,
are matters of wonder to those who take human or woman kind for a
study; and the pursuit of fashion under difficulties would be a
fine theme for any very great person who had the wit, the leisure,
and the knowledge of the English language necessary for the
compiling of such a history.--_Vanity Fair._

I can fancy nothing more cruel than to have to sit day after day
with a dull handsome woman opposite; to answer her speeches about
the weather, housekeeping, and what not.... Women go through this
simpering and smiling life and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a
life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's
or father's jokes and stories time after time and would not laugh
at breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he told them? Flattery is their
nature,--to coax, flatter, and sweetly befool some one is every
woman's business. She is none, if she declines this office.--_The