wind had broken into the house, and was
advancing to the dining-room to blow us both
into empty space. We knew what this
meant, and looked at each other, and said,
"Hullo! here they are." The door opened,
and Boreas swam in voluptuously, in the
shape of my wife, in claret-coloured velvet.
She stands five feet nine, and wears—No! I
have never actually counted them. Let me
not mislead the public, or do injustice to my
wife. Let me rest satisfied with stating her
height, and adding that she is a fashionable
woman. Her circumference, and the causes
of it, may be left to the imagination of the
reader.

She was followed by four minor winds,
blowing dead in our teeth—by my married
daughter in Violet Tulle Illusion; by my
own Julia (single) in Pink Moiré Antique;
by my own Emily (single) in white lace over
glacé silk; by my own Charlotte (single) in
blue gauze over glacé silk. The four minor
winds, and the majestic maternal Boreas,
entirely filled the room, and overflowed on to
the dining-table. It was a grand sight. My
son-in-law and I—a pair of mere black
tadpoles—shrank into a corner, and gazed at it
helplessly.

Our corner was, unfortunately, the farthest
from the door. So, when I moved to lead
the way to the carriages, I confronted a
brilliant, intermediate expanse of ninety yards
of outer clothing alone (allowing only eighteen
yards each to the ladies). Being old, wily,
and respected in the house, I took care to
avoid my wife, and succeeded in getting
through my daughters. My son-in-law,
young, innocent, and of secondary position in
the family, was not so fortunate. I left him
helpless, looking round the corner of his
mother-in-law's claret-coloured velvet, with
one of his legs lost in his wife's Tulle
Illusion. There is every reason to suppose that
he never extricated himself; for when he got
into the carriages he was not to be found;
and, when ultimately recovered, exhibited
symptoms of physical and mental exhaustion. I
am afraid my son-in-law caught it—I am very
much afraid that, during my absence, my son-
in-law caught it.

We filled—no, we overflowed—two
carriages. My wife and her married daughter
in one, and I, myself, on the box—the front
seat being very properly wanted for the velvet
and the Tulle Illusion. In the second
carriage were my three girls—crushed, as they
indignantly informed me, crushed out of all
shape (didn't I tell you, just now, how plump
one of them was?) by the miserably-inefficient
accommodation which the vehicle offered
to them. They told my son-in-law, as he
meekly mounted to the box, that they would
take care not to marry a man like him, at
any rate! I have not the least idea what he
had done to provoke them. The worthy
creature gets a great deal of scolding, in the
house, without any assignable cause for it.
Do my daughters resent his official knowledge,
as a husband, of the secret of their sister's
ugly feet? Oh, dear me, I hope not—I
sincerely hope not!

At ten minutes past ten we drove to the
hospitable abode of Doctor and Mrs. Crump.
The women of my family were then perfectly
dressed in the finest materials. There was
not a flaw in any part of the costume of any
one of the party. This is a great deal to say
of ninety yards of clothing, without mentioning
the streams of ribbon, and the dense
thickets of flowery bushes that wantoned
gracefully all over their heads and half-down
their backs—nevertheless, I can say it.

At forty minutes past four, the next morning,
we were all assembled once more in my
dining-room, to light our bed-room candles.
Judging by costume only, I should not have
known one of my daughters again—no, not
one of them!

The Tulle Illusion, was illusion no longer.
My married daughter's gorgeous substratum
of Gros de Naples bulged through it in half
a dozen places. The Pink Moiré Antique
was torn into a draggle-tailed pink train. The
white lace was in tatters, and the blue gauze
was in shreds.

"A charming party!" cried my daughters
in melodious chorus, as I surveyed this scene
of ruin. Charming, indeed! If I had dressed
up my four girls, and sent them to Greenwich
Fair, with strict orders to get drunk and
assault the police, and if they had carefully
followed my directions, could they have come
home to me in a much worse condition than
the condition in which I see them now?
Could any man, not acquainted with the
present monstrous system of party-giving,
look at my four young women, and believe
that they had been spending the evening
under the eyes of their parents, at a respectable
house? If the party had been at a
linendraper's, I could understand the object
of this wanton destruction of property. But
Doctor Crump is not interested in making
me buy new gowns. What have I done to
him that he should ask me and my family
to his house, and all but tear my children's
gowns off their backs in return for our
friendly readiness to accept his invitation?

But my daughters danced all the evening,
and these little accidents will happen in
private ball-rooms. Indeed? I did not
dance, my wife did not dance, my son-in-law
did not dance. Have we escaped injury
on that account? Decidedly not. Velvet
is not an easy thing to tear, so I have no
rents to deplore in my wife's dress. But I
apprehend that a spoonful of trifle does not
reach its destination properly when it is
deposited in a lady's lap; and I altogether
deny that there is any necessary connection
between the charms of society, and the
wearing of crushed macaroons, adhesively
dotted over the back part of a respectable
matron's dress. I picked three off my wife's