woman, the moaning wind, and the sound of the waters.  And now she is muttering in her dreams, and talking to her lover, she has forgotten all the years that have passed, and is bidding him a joyous welcome and while the storm is at its height, a smile of tenderness has passed over the face of the old creature, making her look almost young, when the door opens; a figure in a wet winding sheet, with hair in which was mingled sea weed, glides to the bed-side, a whispered utterance from the dying woman, “he has come,” the figure moves again to the door.  An invisible power has extinguished the light, and the flame of the lamp and the woman’s soul, have gone out together, while from the bedside to the door there is the trail of wet garments.

Again I hear the voice of the Cynic.

This is an age of shoddyism, and it is difficult at times to distinguish the real from the sham.  The woman who is covered with jewelry, looking like a travelling doorplate, is the kind from whom we expect the bow to vary, in coldness or cordiality, according to the clothes we wear, or the entertainments we are able to give.  With such people money means everything, brains and breeding being secondary considerations.  And it is very amusing on meeting Madam Shoddy to note the look with which she scans one from head to foot, balancing in her mind the cost of each article of apparel, her mind wholly given up to dollars and cents, and woe unto the person, who does not come up to the proper standard, of pounds, shillings and pence.

In talking with such a one you will find their conversation frequently interlarded with the use of the words ladies and gentlemen.  But madam shoddy does really very little actual harm, all these things being a harmless sort of imbecility.

But at the hands of Madam Snob, one will not fare as well, for having nothing noble in her own nature she is constantly picking flaws in the character of others.  Madam Snob will entertain you with a long account of her family connections.  Poor soul she is constantly resurrecting the remains of dead and gone ancestors; her life is spent in the charnel house, being very careful however, to let the remains of a certain few rest in peace, while she rattles the dry bones of her favored ones in our face, until we are tempted to cry “peace.”  At last our curiosity is aroused, and we make inquiries as to these noble ancestors, and find the overwhelming fact—­that they had been born! and that they had died! very noble of them to have been born, and very heroic, to have died.  If the successors would follow their illustrious example in the last act, the world would still exist.  But you say “this is harmless and only another form of idiocy.”  True if it stopped there, no harm would be done.  But did any one ever know Madam Snob to stop there?  After having visited her family vault, you are requested to enter the abode of your neighbor’s dead, and then your turn will come next and you are asked