much your respected mamma knew at that time of
the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare
a young girl's _man-as-she-thinks-him_ with a forty-summered matron's
_man-as-she-finds-him_, I have my doubts as to whether the second would
be a fac-simile of the first." And yet, young men and women of
respectable standing "over the way," are allowed far greater latitude
for intercommunication than our own; so much so, that I must say, I
would not like our budding misses to go the lengths of the American
girl, who receives her own company when she pleases, without any
previous permission, and can go abroad to places of public amusement,
or, indeed, anywhere she likes, without a chaperon.

Still, there is a medium in all things; and, without verging to the
extreme of our Transatlantic cousins, our conventionalities might be so
tempered by the introduction of a little genuine human nature, as to
admit of a trifling freer intercourse between our youth and young
maidenhood of the upper classes.

Goethe, you may remember, makes Werther, whose "sorrows" fascinated a
generation in the days of our great grandmothers, fall in love with
Charlotte, entirely through seeing her cutting bread and butter--nothing
more or less!

A very unromantic situation for fostering the growth of the tender
passion, you say?

Ah! but the literary lion of Weimar meant a good deal more in his
description than lies on the outer surface. He wished to teach a
frivolous school that true affection will ripen better under the genial
influences of domestic duties and home surroundings, than the masked
world believes.

A girl's chances of marriage, the usual end and aim of feminine
existence, are not increased in a direct ratio with the number of her
ball dresses!

Let your eligible suitors but see those young ladies who may wish to
change their maiden state of single blessedness, _at home_, where they
are engaged living their simple lives out in the ordinary avocations of
the family circle; and not only abroad, in the whirligig of society,
where they have no opportunities for displaying their _real_ natures.

Enterprising mammas might then find that their daughters would get more
readily "off their hands," at a less expense than they now incur by
pursuing Coelebs through all the turnings and windings of Vanity Fair.

Besides, they would have the additional assurance, that they would be
better mated to those who prefer studyi