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 omit her promise “to obey,” as is reported to have been the case at a wedding last week, why should any undertaking “to love,” “to honour,” “to cherish,” and so forth remain in the text?  With all this left out, a marriage, which, of course, will no longer be an ecclesiastical rite, will hardly be a very civil ceremony.  In course of time all the promises will be made either explicitly or implicitly conditional, the only question being what is the least possible obligation that can be incurred by both contracting parties at the smallest possible expense.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  FIN DE SIECLE CHILDREN.

He.  “I SAY, HILDA, I SHOULD SO LIKE TO GIVE YOU A KISS!”

She (who WILL pick up such strange expressions from the Boys).  “WOULD YOU, INDEED?  ’I LIKE YOUR CHEEK’!”

He.  “I’M SURE I SHOULD LIKE YOURS!”]

* * * * *

NOT CAUGHT YET!

  The Boy and the Bird!  And the Bird looks so old;—­
  Scarce the species of fowl to be easily “sold,”—­
  And the Boy is so young!  It seems almost absurd
  To suppose that that pinch is to capture that Bird!

  An old form of chase, if the legends run right;
  Like that, much akin, of the wild goose in flight. 
  But salt, just like chaff and the plainly spread net,
  Was never regarded as promising yet.

  But now?  Well, the Birds of the age, like its Boys,
  Its Wives, and its Weather, its Tastes and its Toys,
  Have suffered a change, not a sea-change, but one
  Which floors half the maxims, and spoils half the fun.