aceful, and when at the noon
hour they overflow with conversation, still there is a prevailing sense
of quiet, finely qualified by the feminine invention and influence. Mere
men are allowed to frequent these places, not only under the protection
of women, but also quite unchaperoned, and when one sees them gently
sipping their Souchong or Oolong, and respectfully munching their
toasted muffins or their chicken-pie, one remembers with tender
gratitude how recently they would have stood crooking their elbows at
deleterious bars, and visiting the bowls of cheese and shredded fish and
crackers to which their drink freed them, while it enslaved them to the
witchery of those lurid ladies contributed by art to the evil
attractions of such places: you see nowhere else ladies depicted with so
little on, except in the Paris salon. The New York tea-rooms are not yet
nearly so frequent as in London, but I think they are on the average
cosier, and on the whole I cannot say that they are dearer. They really
cheapen the midday meal to many who would otherwise make it at hotels
and restaurants, and, so far as they contribute to the spread of the
afternoon-tea habit, they actually lessen the cost of living: many
guests can now be fobbed off with tea who must once have been asked to
lunch."

"But," we suggested, "isn't that cheapness at the cost of shabbiness,
which no one can really afford?"

"No, I don't think so. Whatever lightens hospitality of its cumbrousness
makes for civilization, which is really more compatible with a refined
frugality than with an unbridled luxury. If every a-la-carte restaurant,
in the hotels and out of them, could be replaced by tea-rooms, and for
the elaborate lunches and dinners of private life the informality and
simplicity of the afternoon tea were substituted, we should all be
healthier, wealthier, and wiser; and I should not be obliged to protract
this contention for the superior cheapness of New York."

"But, wait!" we said. "There is something just occurs to us. If you
proved New York the cheapest great city in the world, wouldn't it tend
to increase our population even beyond the present figure, which you
once found so deplorable?"

"No, I imagine not. Or, rather, it would add to our population only
those who desire to save instead of those who desire to waste. We should
increase through the new-comers in virtuous economy, and not as now in
spendthrift vainglory. In the end the effect would be th