You may have Cream Cheese to dinner as much as you choose, but I will not have him in the pulpit of my church." The same day, Mr. Cheese happened in about lunch-time, and I asked him if his eyes were really weak. Not at all," said he, "why do you ask?" Then I told him that I had heard he was so fond of candlesticks. Ah! Caroline, you should have seen him then. He stopped in the midst of pouring out a glass of Mr. P.'s best old port, and holding the decanter in one hand, and the glass in the other, he looked so beautifully sad, and said in that sweet low voice: "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Then he filled up his glass, and drank the wine off with such a mournful, resigned air, and wiped his lips so gently with his cambric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hemstitch), that I had no voice to ask him to take a bit of the cold chicken, which he did, however, without my asking him. But when he said in the same low voice, "A little more breast, dear Mrs. Potiphar," I was obliged to run into the drawing-room for a moment, to recover myself. Darling Caroline-I don't care much-but did he ever have any thing to do with a Scarlet Woman? You can imagine how pleasantly Lent is passing since I see so much of him: and then it is so appropriate to Lent to be intimate with a minister. How thankful we ought to be that we live now with so many churches, and such fine ones, and with such gentlemanly ministers as Mr. Cheese. And how nicely it's arranged, that after dancing and dining for two or three months constantly, during which, of course, we can only go to church Sundays, there comes a time for stopping, when we're tired out, and for going to church every day, and (as Mr. P. says) "striking a balance;" and thinking about being good, and all those things. We don't lose a great deal, you know. It makes a variety, and we all see each other, just the same, only we don't dance. I do think it would be better if we took our lorgnettes with us, however, for it was only last Wednesday, at nine o'clock prayers, that I saw Sheena Silke across the church, in their little pew at the corner, and I am sure that she had a new bonnet on; and yet, though I looked at it all the time, trying to find out, prayers were fairly over before I discovered whether it was really new, or only that old white one made over with a few new flowers. Now, if I had had my glass, I could have told in a moment, and shouldn't have been obliged to lose all the prayers. * he somehow leaned too hard upon the table, and 'Well, I've given that such a punch it will want some lemon-aid to recover." I suppose he had some idea about lemon acid taking out spots. But, the best thing was what he said to me. He is so droll that he insisted upon coming down, and finishing the dance just as he was. The funny fellow brushed against all the dresses in his way, and, finally, said to me, as he pointed to a lemon-seed" upon his coat: "I feel so very lemon-choly for what I have done." I laughed very much (you were in the other room), but Mr. P. stepped up and ordered him to leave the house. Boosey said he would do no such thing; and I have no doubt we should have had a scene, if Mr. P. had not marched him straight to the door, and put him into a carriage, and told the driver where to take him. Mr. P. was red enough when he came back. * * * * * However, to return to the party, I believe nothing else was injured except the curtains in the front drawing-room, which were so smeared with ice-cream and oyster gravy, that we must get new ones; and the cover of my porcelain tureen was broken by the servant, though the man said he really didn't mean to do it, and I could say nothing; and a party of young men, after the German Cotillion, did let fall that superb cut-glass Claret, and shivered it, with a dozen of the delicately engraved straw-stems that stood upon the waiter. That was all, I believe-oh! except that fine "Dresden Gallery," the most splendid book I ever saw, full of engravings of the great pictures in Dresden, Vienna, and the other Italian towns, and which was sent to Mr. P. by an old friend, an artist, whom he had helped along when he was very poor. Somebody unfortunately tipped over a bottle of claret that stood upon the table, (I am sure I don't know how it got there, though Mr. P. says Gauche Boosey *knows,) and it lay soaking into the book, so that I almost every picture has a claret stain, which looks so funny. I am very sorry, I am sure, but, as I tell Mr. P., it's no use crying for spilt milk. I was telling Mr. Boosey of it at the Gnus' dinner. He laughed very much, and when I said that a good many of the faces were sadly stained, he said in his droll way, "You ought to call it L'opera di Bordeaux; Le Domino rogue." I supposed it was something funny, so I laughed a good deal. He said to me later: Mr. Potiphar has sent out for the new carpets. had only two spoiled at my ball, you know, and that was very little. One always expects to sacrifice at least two carpets upon occasion of seeing one's friends. That handsome one in the supper room was entirely ruined. Would you believe that Mr. P., when he went down stairs the next morning, found our Fred and his cousin hoeing it with their little hoes? It was entirely matted with preserves and things, and the boys said they were scraping it clean for breakfast. The other spoiled carpet was in the gentlemen's dressing-room where the punchbowl was. Young Gauche Boosey, a very gentlemanly fellow, you know, ran up after polking, and was so confused with the light and heat that he went quite unsteadily, and as he was trying to fill a glass with the silver ladle (which is rather heavy), "Shall I pour a little claret into your book-I mean into your glass?" Wasn't it a pretty bon-mot? Don't you think we are getting very spirituel in this country? I believe there was nothing else injured except the bed-hangings in the back-room, which were somehow badly burnt and very much torn in pulling down, and a few of our handsomest shades that were cracked by the heat, and a few plates, which it was hardly fair to expect wouldn't be broken, and the colored glass door in my escritoire, against which Flattie Podge fell as she was dancing with Gauche Boosey; but he may have been a little excited you know, and she, poor girl, couldn't help tumbling, and as her head hit the glass; of course it broke, and cut her head badly, so that the blood ran down and naturally spoiled her dress; and what little escritoire could stand against Flattie Podge? So that went, and was a good deal smashed in falling. That's all, I think, except that the next day Mrs. Croesus sent a note, saying that she had lost her largest diamond from her necklace, and she was sure that it was not in the carriage, nor in her own house, nor upon the sidewalk, for she had carefully looked every where, and she would be very glad if I would return it by the bearer. Think of that! Well, we hunted every where, and found no diamond. I took particular pains to ask the servants if they had found it, for if they had, they might as well give it up at once, without expecting any reward from Mrs. Croesus, who wasn't very generous. But they all said they hadn't found any diamond: and our man John, who you know is so guileless, although it was a little mysterious about that emerald pin of mine,-brought me a bit of glass that had been nicked out of my large custard dish, and asked me if that was not Mrs. Croesus's diamond. I told him no, and gave him a gold dollar for his honesty. John is an invaluable servant; he is so guileless. Do you know I am not so sure about Mrs. Croesus's diamond! Mr. P. made a great growling about the ball. But it was very foolish, for he got safely to bed by six o'clock, and he need have no trouble about replacing the curtains, and glass, etc. I shall do all that, and the sum total will be sent to him in a lump, so that he can pay it. What gossips we women are, to be sure! I meant to write you about our new livery, and I am afraid I have tired you out already. You remember when you were here, I said that I meant to have a livery, for my sister Margaret told me that when they used to drive in Hyde Park, with the old Marquis of Mammon, it was always so delightful to hear him say, "Ah! There is Lady Lobster's livery." It was so aristocratic. And in countries where certain colors distinguish certain families, and are hereditary, so to say, it is convenient and pleasant to recognize a coat-of-arms, or a livery, and to know that the representative of a great and famous family is passing by. "That's a Howard, that's a Russell, that's a Dorset, that's de Colique, that's Mount Ague," old Lord Mammon used to say as the carriages whirled by. He knew none of them personally, I believe, except de Colique and Mount Ague, but then it was so agreeable to be able to know their liveries. Now why shouldn't we have the same arrangement? Why not have the Smith colors, and the Brown colors, and the Black colors, and the Potiphar colors, etc., so that the people might say, "Ah! there goes the Potiphar arms.' There is one difficulty, Mr. P. says, and that is, that he found five hundred and sixty-seven Smiths in the Directory, which might lead to some confusion. But that was absurd, as I told him, because every body would know which of the Smiths was able to keep a carriage, so that the livery would be recognized directly, the moment that any of the family were seen in the carriage. Upon which he said, in his provoking way, 'Why have any livery at all, then?" and he persisted in saying that no Smith was ever the Smith for three generations, and that he knew at least twenty, each of whom was able to set up his carriage and stand by his colors. "But then a livery is so elegant and aristocratic," said I, "and it shows that a servant is a servant.' That last was a strong argument, and I thought Mr. P. would have nothing to say against it; but he rattled on for some time, asking me what right I had to be aristocratic, or, in fact, any body else ;went over his eternal old talk about aping foreign habits, as if we hadn't a right to adopt the good usages of all nations, and finally said that the use of liveries among us was not only a 'pure peacock absurdity," as he called it, but that no genuine American would ever ask another to assume a menial badge. 66 Why!" said I, "is not an American servant a servant still ?" "Most undoubtedly," he said; " and when a man is a servant, let him serve faithfully; and in this country especially, where to-morrow he may be the served, and not the servant, let him not be ashamed of serving. But, Mrs. Potiphar, I beg you to observe that a servant's livery is not, like a general's uniform, the badge of honorable service, but of menial service. Of course, a servant may be as honorable as a general, and his work quite as necessary and well done. But, for all that, it is not so respected nor coveted a situation, I believe; and, in social estimation, a man suffers by wearing a livery, as he never would if he wore none. And while in countries in which a man is proud of being a servant (as every man may well be of being a good one), and never looks to any thing else, nor desires any change, a livery may be very proper to the state of society,, |