little—where are nestled, all torn, blotted,
faded, mildewed, crumpled, stained and moth-
eaten, some portraits of the old ladies I
should like to find now-a-days.

Yes; here is one: The Pretty Old Lady.
She must have been very, very beautiful when
young; for, in my childish eyes she had
scarcely any imperfections, and we all know
what acute and unmerciful critics children
are. Her hair was quite white; not silvery,
nor powdery, but pure glossy white, resembling
spun glass. I have never been able to
make my mind up whether she wore a cap,
a hood, or one of those silken head-coverings
of the last century called a calash.
Whatever she wore, it became her infinitely.
I incline, on second thoughts, more to the
calash, and think she wore it in lieu of a
bonnet, when she went abroad; which was
but seldom. The portrait I have of the old
lady is, indeed, blurred and dimmed by the
lapse of many winters, and some tears. Her
title of the pretty old lady was not given to
her lightly. It was bruited many years ago
—when ladies of fashion were drunk to, in
public, and gentlemen of fashion were drunk
in public—that the pretty old lady was a
"reigning toast."

A certain gray silk dress which, as it had
always square creases in it, I conjectured to
be always new, decorated the person of the
pretty old lady. She wore a profusion of
black lace, which must have been priceless,
for it was continually being mended, and
its reversion was much coveted by the old
lady's female friends. My aunt Jane, who
was tremendously old, and was a lady;
but whose faculties decayed somewhat
towards the close of her life, was never so
coherent (save on the subject of May-day and
the sweeps) as when she speculated as to
"who was to have the lace " after the old
lady's demise. But my aunt Jane died first,
and her doubts were never solved. More than
this, I can remember a fat-faced old gold
watch which the pretty old lady wore at
her waist; a plethoric mass of wheezing gold,
like an oyster grown rich and knowing
the time of day. Attached to this she wore
some trinkets—not the nonsensical charms
or breloques that young ladies wear in their
chatelaines now, but sensible, substantial
ornaments—a signet-ring of her
grandfather's; a smelling-bottle covered with silver
fillagree; and a little golden box in the form
of a book with clasps, which we waggish
youngsters declared to be the old lady's
snuff-box, but which, I believe, now, to have
been a pouncet-box—the same perhaps, which
the lord, who was perfumed like a milliner,
held 'twixt his finger and his thumb upon
the battle-field, and which, ever and anon,
he gave his nose.

I trust I am not treading upon dangerous
ground, when I say, that two of the chief
prettinesses of the pretty old lady were her
feet and their covering. "To ladies' eyes
a round, boys!" Certainly, Mr. Moore, we can't
refuse; but to ladies' feet, a round boys,
also, if you please. Now the pretty old lady
had the prettiest of feet, with the most delicate
of gray silk stockings, the understandings of
the finest, softest, most lustrous leather that
ever came from innocent kid. I will back those
feet (to use the parlance of this horse-
racing age) and those shoes and stockings
against any in the known world, in ancient
or modern history or romance: against
Dorothea's tiny feet dabbling in the stream;
against Musidora's paddling in the cool
brook; against Sara la Baigneuse swinging
in her silken hammock; against De
Grammont's Miss Howard's green stockings;
against Madam de Pompadour's golden clocks
and red-heeled mules; against Noblet,
Taglioni, Cerito's; against Madame Vestris's,
as modelled in wax by Signor N. N.
There are no such feet as the pretty old lady's
now; or, if any such exist, their possessors
don't know how to treat them. The French
ladies are rapidly losing the art of putting on
shoes and stockings with taste; and I
deliberately declare, in the face of Europe, that I
have not seen, within the last three months in
Paris—from the Boulevard des Italiens to the
Ball of the Prefect of the Seine—twenty pairs
of irreproachable feet. The systematically
arched instep, the geometrical ankle, the
gentle curves and undulations, the delicate
advancement and retrogression of the foot
of beauty, are all things falling into
decadence. The American overshoes, the
machine-made hosiery, and the trailing
draperies, are completing the ruin of shoes and
stockings.

The pretty old lady had never been married.
Her father had been a man of fashion—a gay
man—a first-rate buck, a sparkling rake;
he had known lords, he had driven curricles,
he had worn the finest of fine linen, the most
resplendent of shoe-buckles; he had once
come into the possession of five thousand
pounds sterling, upon which capital—quite
casting the grovelling doctrine of interest to
tlie winds—he had determined to try the
fascinating experiment of living at the rate of
five thousand a year. In this experiment he
succeeded to his heart's content for the
exact period of one year and one day, after
which he had lived (at the same rate) on
credit; after that on the credit of his credit;
after that on his wits; after that in the rules of
the King's Bench; after that on the certainty
of making so many tricks, nightly, at whist;
and, finally, upon his daughter. For the pretty
old lady, with admirable self-abnegation, had
seen her two ugly sisters married; had, with
some natural tears, refused Captain Cutts, of the
line, whom she loved (but who had nothing but
his pay) and had contentedly accepted the office
of a governess; whence, after much self-denial,
study, striving, pinching, and saving (how
many times her little cobwebs of economy
were ruthlessly swept away by her gay