e reasons I
listened quite indulgently to the animated conversation that was
going on about--Well!

What _do_ girls generally talk about, when a knot of them get
together? Not, I believe, about the sources of the Nile, or the
precession of the equinoxes, or the nature of the human understanding,
or Dante, or Shakespeare, or Milton, although they have learned all
about them in school; but upon a theme much nearer and dearer,--the
one all-pervading feminine topic ever since Eve started the first
toilet of fig-leaves; and as I caught now and then a phrase of their
chatter, I jotted it down in pure amusement, giving to each charming
speaker the name of the bird under whose colors she was sailing.

"For my part," said little Humming-Bird, "I'm quite worn out with
sewing; the fashions are all _so_ different from what they were last
year, that everything has to be made over."

"Isn't it dreadful!" said Pheasant. "There's my new mauve silk dress!
it was a very expensive silk, and I haven't worn it more than three or
four times, and it really looks quite dowdy; and I can't get Patterson
to do it over for me for this party. Well, really, I shall have to
give up company because I have nothing to wear."

"Who _does_ set the fashions, I wonder," said Humming-Bird; "they seem
nowadays to whirl faster and faster, till really they don't leave one
time for anything."

"Yes," said Dove, "I haven't a moment for reading, or drawing, or
keeping up my music. The fact is, nowadays, to keep one's self
properly dressed is all one can do. If I were _grande dame_ now, and
had only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might be
beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it
myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning
about one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your
bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being
behindhand! It is really too fatiguing."

"Well," said Jenny, "I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be
in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind every
one; nobody wants to have people say, 'Do see what an old-times,
rubbishy looking creature _that_ is.' And now, with my small means and
my conscience (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don't wish
to spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one's self
fresh and tasteful), I find my dress quite a fatiguing care."

"Well, now, girls," said Humming-B