toilettes: the subordinates wearily wishing for
morning to come and the dolorous task to be got
through; the principals uttering devout aspirations
that their bills might be paid at the end of
the season. If poor Mademoiselle Ruche, of
Mount-street, Grosvenor-square, did not obtain
a settlement of her small account (£904 3s. 6d.)
from the Marchioness of CÅ“urdesart, when the
season and the session were over, and did in
consequence go bankrupt; if the flower-show
was to unhappy Miss Pincothek, the "first
hand," the seed-time for the harvest which
death reaped next spring; or if the night before
Chiswick was to Jane Thumb, the apprentice
girl, the last straw that broke the consumptive
camel's back—what were such little mischances
in comparison with the immense benefit which of
course accrues to the community at large from
all fashionable gatherings? That the few must
suffer for the benefit of the many, is an axiom
admitted m the conduct of all human affairs.
According to the rules of fashionable polity, the
many must suffer for the benefit of the few.

There could not have been a more magnificent
day for the holding of a patrician festival. It
had rained the preceding year, and snowed the
year before that; but the show of 1836 was
favoured by the elements in an almost
unprecedented  degree. Although the gracious Lady
who now rules over this empire was then but a
pretty young princess, it was really "Queen's
weather" with which the visitors to Chiswick
were for a brief afternoon endowed. One cannot
have everything one's own way, of course, and
although the sky was very blue, the sun very
warm and bright, and the summer breeze very
gentle, there was rebellion underfoot; and if the
worm in the dust didn't turn when trodden upon,
the dust itself did, even to rising up and eddying
about, and covering the garments of fashion with
pulverulent particles, and half choking every
man, woman, and child who happened to be in
the open between Hyde Park Corner and Kew
Bridge.

The young ladies and gentlemen belonging to
the various colleges, academies, seminaries, and
educational institutions in the high road from
Hammersmith Broadway to Turnham-green—for
of course there could be no such vulgar things
as schools in a main thoroughfare, such low
places being only to be found in by-lanes where
children are cuffed and kicked, and don't learn
calisthenics, and have fevers, and don't have
French lessons—the fortunate little boys and
girls attached to those gymnasia had a half-
holiday on the flower-show afternoon, just as
their tiny brethren and sisters at Clapham and
Mitcham are exempted from lessons and
permitted to be all eyes for the passing cavalcade
on the Derby Day. Their shiny well-washed
faces were visible over the copings of many
brick walls; their eyes shone brighter than
many brass plates whereon the academical
degrees of their preceptors were engraved; their
pleasant countenances were embowered in green
foliage, so delightfully as to make the speculative
wayfarer ponder on the possibility of there
having been child-trees among the horticultural
phenomena of the garden of Eden; their silver
laughter, and the ringing clack of their chubby
hands as they smote them in applause, made the
same wayfarers (if they happened to be
philanthropists) hope that those argentine tones were
never turned to wails of distress, nor that same
sound of applause derived from cruel smacks
administered by their pastors and masters. The
domestic servants, likewise, along the line of
road, if they had not had a half-holiday conceded
to them voluntarily, took one without leave, and
appeared at many up-stairs windows in much
beribboned caps, and with lips ceaselessly mobile,
now in admiration, now in disparagement of the
male and female fashionables whom the carriages
bore by. Nor were their mistresses, young, old,
and middle-aged, employed in a very different
manner at the drawing-room and parlour casements,
from which points of espial they indulged
in criticisms identical in spirit, if not in language,
with those of the upper regions, and bearing
mainly on how beautiful the gentlemen looked,
and what frights the women were! Although,
thus much must be stated in mitigation: That
while they animadverted on the bad make of the
toilettes, and the awkwardness or ugliness of the
ladies, they did not withhold warm commendation
from the quality of the garments themselves.
Enthusiastic admiration for a moire antique is
quite compatible with intense dislike of the lady
inside it. It is one thing to like a dress, but
another to like the wearer.

The lower orders were determined also to have
their part in this great afternoon. All over the
world, when sunshine is once given, the principal
part of a festival is secured. This is why the
Italians are so lazy. As it is almost always sunny
in Italy, the sun-worshippers (and it is astonishing
how many Ghebirs there are among Christians)
are nearly always doing nothing, or celebrating
Saint Somebody's festa, which is next door to
it. We see so little of the sun in England, that
we are bound to make the most of him whenever
he favours us with an appearance. The trading
classes on the road to Chiswick enjoyed their
holidays according to the promptings of their
several imaginations. One abandoned his shop
to the care of an apprentice, and took a stroll
towards the Packhorse, where he met other
tradesmen similarly minded, and was, perhaps,
after many admiring comments on the carriages,
the horses, the footmen, and the fashionables,
induced to stroll back again, diverge from the
main road, and take a boat at Hammersmith
Suspension Bridge for a quiet row up the river.
Another (but he would be in a small way of
business) gravely instructed the wife of his bosom
to place a row of chairs outside his domicile,
and there, enthroned with the partner of his
joys and his olive-branches, would smoke his
pipe and take his placid glass, exchanging the
time of day and the news of the afternoon with