muttered discontent of a neglected husband, who was foolish enough to
prefer comfort to smartness, began to subside. In the following year
her entertainments became even more splendid, and less comfortable.
She took a house at Ascot, and, triumph of triumphs! a scion of
Royalty deigned to accept her hospitality.

After this, one would have supposed that she might have reposed for
a space. But the penalty of social life is its never-ending necessity
for movement. Jealous rivals abound to dispute a hardly-won supremacy,
and the least sign of faltering may involve extinction. Yet it must
be said that she is kind to her own, even when she is most brilliant.
She brings out a daughter to be the delight of young Guardsmen, and
marries her to a widowed Peer; she furbishes up forgotten relations,
and allows them to shine in the rays of her glory; she is charitable
after the manner of fancy fairs, and the hospitality of her house
becomes proverbial. But, in the midst of all the bustle, the
confusion, and the rattling turmoil of her career, she sometimes sighs
for the undistinguished ease of her life in the pre-Royal days, sighs,
and returns with fresh vigour to the struggle.

And so the pleasureless days of the pleasure-seeker follow one
another, each with its particular legacy of little strivings, until,
at the last, consolation may come from the thought that there is
at least one place where there are many mansions, but no social
ambitions.

* * * * *

NEW PRAYER-BOOK REVISION.--Several alterations will now have to be
made in the marriage service. If it be permissible for the bride to