and bonnets. How we have to pay milliners' bills from year to year!
Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850 which no lady could be
without? Where those charming waistcoats, those "stunning" waistcoats,
which our young girls used to wear a few brief seasons back, and which
cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of "La Mode," to ask Ellen for
her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior by this time, very likely
facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty Ellen, and that love of a
sister of hers, are married and happy, let us hope, superintending one
of those delightful nursery scenes which our artist depicts with such
tender humor. Fortunate artist, indeed! You see he must have been bred
at a good public school; that he has ridden many a good horse in his
day; paid, no doubt, out of his own purse for the originals of some of
those lovely caps and bonnets; and watched paternally the ways, smiles,
frolics, and slumbers of his favorite little people.

As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them,--private jokes,
as it were, imparted to you by the author for your special delectation.
How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed the hair-dressers
of the present age! Look at "Mr. Tongs," whom that hideous old bald
woman, who ties on her bonnet at the glass, informs that "she has used
the whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair comes off yet."
You can see the bear's-grease not only on Tongs's head but on his hands,
which he is clapping clammily together. Remark him who is telling his
client "there is cholera in the hair;" and that lucky rogue whom
the young lady bids to cut off "a long thick piece"--for somebody,
doubtless. All these men are different, and delightfully natural and
absurd. Why should hair-dressing be an absurd profession?

The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in Mr. Leech's
pieces: his admirable actors use them with perfect naturalness. Look at