usually terminates the hobnobbing. The "gay ladie" has had, quite
likely, her hour of triumph over her more modest, quiet, and unassuming
rival, now in the background, but whom--when the young man is ready to
proffer his hand and fortune--is most likely to be led to the front,
blushing with her becoming and well-deserved honors, leaving the doting
mothers, with their _dear_ daughters, to reflect on the "strange ways of
you men."

If the world sees, it does not fully believe what it sees, else a change
would surely come. The fact is, while men, especially the young men,
delight to do _honor_ to these devotees of the milliner and
mantua-maker, they cannot--those who have a fair share of good
sense--afford to _marry_ them. Their means, their prospects, and their
happiness forbid it, and they are right in this conclusion. They prefer
to unite their lives with some equally good, and usually more sensible
and healthful girl, but of, perhaps, no special prospects or position in
society. This decision is certainly founded in wisdom. They are forever
relieved from that constant strain on their pride, and the consequent
drain on their purse. Their style of living may, in this latter case, be
squared, without jar or reproach, to their real revenues, and life be to
them worth the living, while they gradually and lovingly lay aside, for
any future exigency, something each year on which, in old age or
disaster, they may confidently lean, and which, though it may not be
great, yet shall, in a reasonable life, be sufficient to tide them to,
and "over the river."

Everything, of course, has some exceptions; and where the fashionable
lady can sustain the family pride and family coach both at one and the
same time, why, then, our remarks and objections have little weight.
Yet, in what we have written may be found the real cause of the increase