affluent splendour of bad taste which reminds us of nothing in the world
so much as of those portions of _The Lady Flabella_ which Mrs.
Wititterly was presently to find so soft and so voluptuous. The
following extract from one of Rosina's lively letters-and she was a very
sprightly correspondent--gives an example of her style, of her husband's
Pelhamish extravagance, and of the gaudy recklessness of their manner of
life. They had now been married nearly two years:--

"How do you think my audacious husband has spent his time since he
has been in town? Why, he must needs send me down what he termed a
little Christmas box, which was a huge box from Howel and James's,
containing only eight Gros de Naples dresses of different colours
not made up, four Gros des Indes, two merino ones, four satin ones,
an amber, a black, a white and a blue, eight pocket handkerchiefs
that look as if they had been spun out of lilies and air and
_brodée_ by the fairies, they are so exquisitely fine and so
beautifully worked. Four pieces (16 yards in each) of beautiful
white blonde, two broad pieces and two less broad, a beautiful and
very large blue real cashmere shawl, a Chantilly veil that would
reach from this to Dublin, and six French long pellerines very
richly embroidered on the finest India muslin, three dozen pair of
white silk stockings, one dozen of black, a most beautiful black
satin cloak with very pretty odd sort of capes and trimmed round
and up the sides with a very broad band of a new kind of figured
plush--I forget what they call it (it came from Paris), and a hat
of the same--such a hat as can only be made in the Rue Vivienne.
You would think that this 'little Christmas box' would have been
enough to have lasted for some time. However, he thought
differently, for on New Year's morning before I was out of bed,
there came a parcel by the mail, which on opening proved to be a