[A] "In every branch of work we see well-to-do women crowding into the ranks of competition, in consequence of which wages are lowered, and women who really want work are left to starve." _Same Letter._
"ALAS, POOR YORICK!"--HARRY PAYNE, the last of the good old JOEY-GRIMALDI school of Pantomime Clowns, "joined the majority," Friday. Sept. 27. For many years past the Clown's Christmas welcome, "Here we are again!" has been omitted, and, in the future, we are not likely to hear the exclamation revived. Farewell, HARRY PAYNE, "a fellow of infinite jest, and of excellent fancy!"
ENGLAND AND AMERICA.--Successful MARLBOROUGH Match, following upon unsatisfactory DUNRAVEN race. Miss VANDERBILT decidedly winning. _Entente cordiale_ restored.
_Mrs. Brown_ (_on her honeymoon_). "OH, AREN'T YOU GLAD, DARLING, WE HAVE COME THIS DELIGHTFUL TOUR, INSTEAD OF GOING TO ONE OF THOSE STUPID FOREIGN PLACES?"
_Darling is not quite sure about it, as the hills are of terrible frequency, and, naturally, he tows his bride up every one._]
DEAR MARJORIE,--Thanks for your kind letter. I was hoping you would be pleased about my engagement.
It is most curious you should have guessed, without my telling you, and without even seeing his photograph, that his name is ARTHUR. I must tell you more about him. He is tall and handsome, also, _not at all commonplace_. He looks a little like the old prints one sees in seaside lodging-houses, called "_With the Stream_," or "_Against the Stream_," or "_Good-bye_," or "_The Return of the Black Brunswicker_." He looks, in fact, far more romantic than the young men one generally sees: and the key-note (if you will forgive the expression) of his character is his great dislike to modern ideas, especially to anything he calls "cynical." I met him first at Lady LYON TAYMER'S, but he has often explained to me that that was entirely accidental; he was "taken" there; he dislikes her set, and has an especial aversion to the clever young men of the day. He has an excessive--and I must say I think unnecessary--terror of being mistaken for one: and says that if he had not heard it was the very latest thing he would never read anything but SCOTT. To the bicycle and cigarette, for women, he has an equally strong objection, and I think he often pretends not to see a joke because he has a nervous suspicion of its being what _he_ would call the New Humour. In the evening, on the balcony, he quotes BYRON, and in the morning, in the garden, he reads WILKIE COLLINS or Mrs. HENRY WOOD. He says he hopes I shall spend a great deal of time in the still-room, to which I heartily assent, though neither of us know exactly what a still-room is, but it sounds quiet. Women, ARTHUR thinks, should preserve fruits, and a lady-like demeanour, and do plain needle-work, or perhaps "tatting." Art embroidery he looks on with doubt, and I believe he considers it _fast_. When I told him he seemed anxious I should not _reap_ without having learnt to _sew_, he seemed hurt and we hastily changed the subject. I was playing croquet with him--(croquet he approves)--when he was lecturing on fruit-preserving. "Shall you really expect me to make jam?" I said. "Would you be cross if I did?" he asked, tenderly. "CROSSE! yes! and BLACKWELL, too, if you like," I answered in my (occasionally) flippant way, which I always regret instantly after. ARTHUR threw down his mallet. "This--GLADYS--this is the sort of thing which--which--," &c. We had a short quarrel, and a long reconciliation. ARTHUR is a _great dear_, you must understand, and I am very happy. He does not show me the book of dried flowers nearly so often now, and has written some verses about me, he is going to show them to me to-night.