To which she replies, "What are roomy eyes, dear?" (Being her fourth
cousin by marriage, I am a sort of maiden aunt to her,--whence this
respectful familiarity.) "Eyes in which there is room for the honest
glances that never show themselves?'"

I sternly remark that "nice girls never pun."

"Yes," she replies; "punning, like beer and other vices, is the peculiar
prerogative of men, I suppose. But you need not be afraid. I read
PUNCHINELLO sometimes, and it is a terrible warning to people who are
tempted to pun. I could give you frightful instances of the appalling
depth to which the men who make puns in PUNCHINELLO occasionally sink."

I hastily close the discussion by inviting her to come to WALLACK'S and
see an old comedy. So we find ourselves on the following evening in the
only theatre in the country where that rather important adjunct of a
theatre--a company--is to be found,

There are quantities of elegant dresses in the house,--the ladies having
an idea that an old comedy is one of those things which every
fashionable person ought to see. There are also numbers of nice young
men, who, being the burning and shining lights of fashionable society
(after their day's work behind the counter is ended), come to be bored
by the old comedy, with a heroism which proves how immeasurably superior
to the influences of tape and calico are their youthful souls. By the
by, it is one of the unavoidable _désagréments_ of New York society that
the wearer of the elegant dress is often conscious that her partner in
the waltz knows precisely how many yards of material compose her skirt,
and exactly how much it cost per yard, for the excellent reason that he