able
tortures; and when that outraged and indignant poet savagely
asserted, that 'Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands
mourn,' I have an abiding conviction that he had just been victimized
at a 'Reception,' or 'German,' or 'Kettle-drum,' or 'Masque
Ball,'--or some such fine occasion, where people are amused by
treading on each other's toes, and gnawing (metaphorically) their
nearest neighbour's vertebrae."

"Do you not enjoy going into society?"

"_Cela depend!_ You are an unsophisticated little package of innocent
rusticity, and have yet to learn

'Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes,
The Bores and Bored!'

I speak advisedly, for lo these four years I have energetically
preyed, and been preyed upon. When I was your age, I was impatient to
break away from my governess, and soar into the flowery pastures of
fashionable gaiety, with the crowd of other butterflies that seemed
so happy, so lovely; but now that I have bruised my pretty wings, and
tarnished the gilding, and rubbed off the fresh enamelling, I would
if I could crawl back into a safe brown cocoon, or hide in some quiet
and forgotten chrysalis. Did you ever hear of Moloch?"

"Yes, of course; I know it was a brazen image, heated red hot, in
whose arms children were placed by idolatrous heathen parents."

"No such thing! that is a foolish, obsolete Rabbinical myth. You must
not talk such old-fashioned folly. Hearken to the solemn truth that
underlies that fable; Moloch reigns here, in far more pomp and
splendour than the Ammonites ever dreamed of. Crowned and sceptred,
he is now called 'Wealth and Fashion,' holds daily festivals and
mighty orgies where salads, boned turkeys, charlotte russe,
_fistachio souffles, creams, ices, champagne-julep, champagne
frappe_, and persicot call the multitude to worship; and there while
the stirring notes of Strauss ring above the sighs and groans of the
heroic victims, fathers and mothers bring their sons and daughters
bravely decked in broadcloth and satin, white kid and diamonds, and
offer them in sacrifice; and Moloch clasps, scorches, blackens all!
Wide wonderful blue eyes, how shocked you look!"

Olga laughed lightly, shook out the fringed ends of her broad white
silk sash, and glanced in the mirror of the bureau, to see the
effect.

"Regina, don't begin city life by a system of starvation that would
do infinite credit to a Thebaid anchor