is equally capable of performing every social duty, but she devotes not so considerable a portion of her time and thoughts to dress, nor is she so totally absorbed in the anticipation and retrospection of balls and soirees, to the exclusion of every other feeling, as long as the season for parties continues, which is but too much the case with females in Paris, except with those whose business or occupations prevent them from participating otherwise than very sparingly in the gaieties of that description; but the class I allude to in France, is that which consists of persons of independent fortune, who have never been connected with anything in the shape of trade or even professions, except army or navy, yet whose property is too small to estimate them as belonging to the higher classes, whilst they would consider themselves as degraded by an association with even the richer tradespeople, generally coming under the denomination of middle classes.  This grade, immediately below the highest classes and above the middle, is very numerous in Paris, their incomes varying from four hundred to a thousand a-year; with the females in this class there is an exact resemblance to those of the class above, only the sphere is more confined; their education finished, they retain but little of what they have learned, except dancing, singing, and music, because they are calculated for display, and tell in society; drawing is laid aside, even after much proficiency had been acquired, reading confined to the reviews of the popular works of the day, the inexhaustible subjects of conversation are the toilet, which is pre-eminent, balls, soirees, and public places; if literature be introduced, you will find their knowledge of it sufficient to escape the charge of ignorance, particularly in history, as great pains are now taken with their education, and which certainly is of the best description, whilst there is a grace and sweetness of manner which is highly captivating; yet when you become well acquainted with these ladies, whose surface was enchanting, you find at last a want of soul.  As a proof how seldom I have found French females express any delight in beholding all the phenomena of an extensive and beautiful country, and if the mind be dead to that charm, how must it be lost to the enjoyments of descriptive poetry and painting, as if the reality afford not pleasure how little can be derived from the representation; I have found in France many exceptions to this rule, women, in fact, whose society afforded a highly intellectual treat.  But they are rare, and when one speaks of a people generally, the mass must be stated and not the exceptions.  In England, even amongst the classes of the highest fashion, many women are to be met with, who, notwithstanding that they are whirled about in London for months together to parties every night, sometimes to three or four in an evening, to hear and say the nothings that pass current in assemblages of that description, both deteriorating to health and