for the rest of her life? She would do, I
venture to hypothesise, neither the one nor
the other. She would rebel; she would tell
her husband he was a fool, and, that if he
talked in that style a second time, she would
get him put into a mad-house; and, as to
the young gentlemen with pretty moustaches
and unimpeachable characters, let them look
out for a place in the customs or the coast-
guard, or let them sell themselves for
substitute conscripts, if they pleased; or learn to
cook, and get an engagement at a restaurant
—that indeed would be something respectable
and manly. But no male cashiers or clerks
should ever enter her doors, as sure as she
was an Englishwoman born, and a French-
woman married. Voilà!

But I beg M. Lacroix's pardon for making
so excessively absurd a supposition. He
knows a great deal better than to dream of
any household revolution of the kind.

My ten-pound note—soon may I look upon
its like again—is changed. A proper and
natural consequence of a fulness of cash
honestly earned, is the desire to spend a
little of it in reasonable pleasure. Most
conveniently, a German-French operatic star,
wandering in an eccentric orbit from Milan,
is here for a little sea air, and will give one
single representation—only one. She will
sing The Favourite, and her proceeds will
probably pay for her baths and her bill at the
hotel. The native orchestra is admirable,
and we anticipate a treat. Two ladies go
under my wing, and I take them to the best
place in the theatre—the première gallerie (a
thing we have not in England), a sort of
balcony jutting out just over the pit, and in
front of the boxes. To get there, we have to
traverse the same lobbies and corridors as if
we were going to the boxes of that tier. At
this theatre, my fair friends point out to me
another unwonted employment of female heads
and hands.

You will now, perhaps, suppose that, as
women do so much in France, we found all
the male characters in the opera, and in the
vaudeville which preceded it, assumed by
ladies: that we had female tenors, female
basses, and female walking-gentlemen. No
such thing; the French know better than
that (though Mademoiselle Benita Anguinet,
the first conjuress in Europe, advertises that
she will incessantly give an evening performance
there, which will make Anderson shoot
himself, and Jacobs take poison). But the
box-openers and attendants were all respectable,
decent women. The only men-servants
of the establishment that were visible, were
two or three money-takers below, and the
sentinels outside.

"Well." you will say, impatiently, "you
don't recommend that arrangement for
England, do you? How do such female box-
keepers manage to perform their duties and
maintain order among the unruly characters
of their own sex, who frequent the lobbies of
a theatre? They would insult decent women,
as you say these appeared to be, and prevent
them from retaining their situations."

To your surprise, I reply that none of the
sad and shameless creatures to whom you
allude, are suffered to annoy the public in
such places, else I should not have taken two
women whom I respected there. You may
call it tyranny—here we think it only
decency; but the authorities distinctly say to
all vicious persons who make a trade of vice,
"If you will pursue such courses, we cannot
prevent you; but we will prevent you from
advertising and hawking about your viciousness
in places where it can shock and corrupt
the well-conducted portion of the population.
Whoever here wants to indulge in vice shall,
have to seek it out in its dark and dangerous
hiding-places. It shall not be forced upon
the young; it shall not terrify and extort
from the aged; it shall not repel and disgust
the pure, debarring them from amusements,
which we think it innocent and even wise to
enjoy."

England talks loudly of her morality;
but England cannot attain to this degree
of mere common propriety. Mr. Macready,
to his honour, set the example.

You are aware that nothing rejoices
abandoned people so much as to pull down
others to their own level; and, if they
cannot do that, to annoy and insult them. And
this holds more true of women than it does
in respect to men. Now, if women, by leading
a more active, business-like, and public life,
are thereby necessarily brought into contact
with unfortunates of their own sex, who
envy their honourable position, and hate
them for holding creditably what themselves
have lost, there is an end to the matter; they
will be driven from their post. For, individual
men cannot interfere in the bickerings,
and quarrels, and onslaughts of women
amongst and upon themselves. But the
authorities can and may interfere, and from
their impersonality, carry out with ease many
regulations which no one man can successfully
enforce. If respectable women come forward
and volunteer to take a heavier share of the
labours of this life, they must be supported
by greater politeness and respect from the
men, and protected from all offence, by the
seclusion of those who deliberately prefer
a life of vicious idleness to one of hard-
working decency. If your means or your
income are so limited, that you are thankful
to find in your helpmate and in your
daughter your fellow-labourer, before they
can fairly prove themselves so, they must
first have a clear stage and no stumbling
blocks; and that's the whole of it. English
women must sit at home, or starve each other
by competition for "genteel" employments,
if, by going abroad, or by engaging in those
which are "ungenteel," they are exposed to
annoyances to which they ought not to
submit. I do think that we may hit the nail