rk preferences. She had the innocent impression that a classical
severity and a rigid reticence of taste pervaded even the rebellious
department of feminine millinery in the city of the Pilgrims,--an idea
which we rather think young Boston would laugh down as an exploded
superstition, young Boston's leading idea at the present hour being
apparently to outdo New York in New York's imitation of Paris.

In fact, Grace found it very difficult to find a milliner who, if left
to her own devices, would not befeather and beflower her past all
self-recognition, giving to her that generally betousled and fly-away
air which comes straight from the _demi-monde_ of Paris.

We apprehend that the recent storms of tribulation which have beat
upon those fairy islands of fashion may scatter this frail and
fanciful population, and send them by shiploads on missions of
civilization to our shores; in which case, the bustle and animation
and the brilliant display on the old turnpike, spoken of familiarly as
the "broad road," will be somewhat increased.

Grace however managed, by the exercise of a good individual taste,
to come out of these shopping conflicts in good order,--a handsome,
well-dressed, charming woman, with everybody's best wishes for, and
sympathy in, her happiness.

Lillie was summoned home by urgent messages from her husband, calling
her back to take her share in wedding festivities.

She left willingly; for the fact is that her last conversation with
her cousin Harry had made the situation as uncomfortable to her as if
he had unceremoniously deluged her with a pailful of cold water.

There is a chilly, disagreeable kind of article, called common sense,
which is of all things most repulsive and antipathetical to all petted
creatures whose life has consisted in flattery. It is the kind of talk
which sisters are very apt to hear from brothers, and daughters from
fathers and mothers, when fathers and mothers do their duty by them;
which sets the world before them as it is, and not as it is painted by
flatterers. Those women who prefer the society of gentlemen, and who
have the faculty of bewitching their senses, never are in the way of
hearing from this cold matter-of-fact region; for them it really does
not exist. Every phrase that meets their ear is polished and softened,
guarded and delicately turned, till there is not a particle of homely
truth left in it. They pass their time in a world of illusions; they
demand these