This last requirement reminds me of a letter from a girl-emigrant written to Lady Laura Ridding, wife of the Bishop of Southwell, who had befriended her at home.  “Dear Madam,—­I hope this finds you as well as it leaves me.  The ship is in the middle of the Red Sea, and it is fearfully hot.  I am in a terrible state of melting all day long.  But, honoured Madam, I know you will be pleased to hear that I am still a member of the Church of England.”  I hope the good plain cook and her non-smoking, bath-chair drawing, large-gardening husband may be able to comfort themselves with the same reflection when the varied toils of the day are ended and they seek their well-earned repose in the “small bedroom.”

From these lowly mysteries of domestic life I pass to the Debatable Land between servitude and gentility.  “MAN AND WIFE, superior and active, seek, in gentleman’s family, PLACE OF TRUST; country, houseboat, &c.  Wife needlewoman or Plain Cook, linen, &c.:  man ride and drive, waiting, or useful. Can teach or play violin in musical family; sight-reader in classical works.  Both tall, and refined appearance.”

From the Debatable Land I pass on to the exalted regions of courtly life.

“The Great-niece of a Lord Chamberlain to King George III.  REQUIRES a SITUATION as COMPANION to a lady, or Cicerone to young ladies.  Her mind is highly cultivated. English habits and Parisian accent.”

“Vieille ecole bonne ecole, begad!” cried Major Pendennis, and here would have been a companion for Mrs. Pendennis or a cicerone for Laura after his own heart.  The austere traditions of the Court of George III. and Queen Charlotte might be expected to survive in the great-niece of their Lord Chamberlain; and what a tactful concession to the prejudices of Mrs. Grundy in the statement that, though the accent may be Parisian, the habits are English!  This excellent lady—­evidently a near relation to Mrs. General in Little Dorrit—­reintroduces us to the genteel society in which we are most at home; and here I may remark that the love of aristocracy which is so marked and so amiable a feature of our national character finds its expression not only in the advertisement columns, but in the daily notices of deaths and marriages.  For example:  “On the 22nd inst., at Lisbon, William Thorold Wood, cousin to the Bishop of Rochester, to Sir John Thorold of Syston Park, and brother to the Rector of Widmerpool.  He was a man of great mental endowments and exemplary conduct.”  I dare say he was, but I fear they would have gone unrecorded had it not been for the more impressive fact that he was kinsman to a Bishop and a Baronet.