THE MODEL GIRL. 43 



houses in olden times than we do ; that they had more elegant interiors ; 

 that their fireplaces are things to copy ; that there is no such furniture a.s 

 their claw-footed mahogany chairs. And we should remember that the 

 manners of those pretty great-grandmothers of ours, whom Copley painted, 

 pe as well worth our copying as are the chairs in which they sat or the 

 fireplaces which they looked at. 



The picture of the old-time lady sitting in her parlour, to receive the 

 hand-kiss from her sons and the respectful submission of her daughters 

 such a one of whom her son said, " You can not imagine my horror when 

 I once believed, the next morning, that my mother had seen me drunk "- 

 the dignified matron, who still, in her early morning deshabille, which wns 

 as neat and pretty as her afternoon silk was elegant, attended her house- 

 hold duties, and taught her children the secrets of cookery ; she who was 

 from youth to age a pattern of dignity and the domestic virtues, she is a 

 vanished picture. 



The rich parvenu society, which, like a mushroom growth, follows >u 1 

 denly-acquired wealth, is now apt to be exceedingly fast and utterly rowd ,- 

 Here and there, persons of native refinement and an intuitive sense of tli 

 becoming, endeavour to stem the tide ; but feebly, for the tides of fashion 

 are like those which pour into the Bay of Fundy, irresistible, carrying all 

 before them on their tremendous waves. Fastness and fashion and folly 

 (Cumulative, and, if one woman makes herself noticed by eccentric de- 

 fiance of what was once considered decency, another, a thousand otli 

 follow in her wake, thinking that this defiance is the thing. One beau- 

 tiful " fast " woman who succeeds makes a hundred converts. 



v. 



THE MODEL GIRL. 



J AM 90 glad I have no daughters," said a leader of society ; " for what 



ild I do with them ' I should not wish to have them peculiar girls. 



ed differently from their mates, or marked as either bookish girl>. or 



prudish .u r irls, or non-dancing ^irls, or anything <jUeer : and yet I could 



r permit them to go out on a coach, 1..- out bo tin- .small hours of the 



ni^ht with no chaperon but a woman no older than themselves. 1 could 



not allow them to dance with notorious drunkards, men of evil life, gam- 



)>lers, and Letting men ; I could not let them dres< as many ^irls do whom 



1 know and like; BO 1 am sure it is fortunate for me that I ha\e n> 



them treat my f:i--nd> a> M> many >f my 



