autographs, which I can warrant were always genuine. The poor young lady
was almost tired out sometimes, having to stay at her table, on one
occasion, so late as eleven in the evening, to get through her day's
work. I simplified matters for her by giving her a set of formulae as a
base to start from, and she proved very apt at the task of modifying
each particular letter to suit its purpose.

From this time forward continued a perpetual round of social
engagements. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions with
spread tables, two, three, and four deep of an evening, with receiving
company at our own rooms, took up the day, so that we had very little
time for common sight-seeing.

Of these kinds of entertainments, the breakfast, though pleasant enough
when the company is agreeable, as I always found it, is the least
convenient of all times and modes of visiting. You have already
interviewed one breakfast, and are expecting soon to be coquetting with
a tempting luncheon. If one had as many stomachs as a ruminant, he would
not mind three or four serious meals a day, not counting the tea as one
of them. The luncheon is a very convenient affair: it does not require
special dress; it is informal; it is soon over, and may be made light or
heavy, as one chooses. The afternoon tea is almost a necessity in London
life. It is considered useful as "a pick me up," and it serves an
admirable purpose in the social system. It costs the household hardly
any trouble or expense. It brings people together in the easiest
possible way, for ten minutes or an hour, just as their engagements or
fancies may settle it. A cup of tea at the right moment does for the
virtuous reveller all that Falstaff claims for a good sherris-sack, or
at least the first half of its "twofold operation:" "It ascends me into
the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors