the appointed hour by the shower of pasteboard transmitted from dainty
kid-gloved hands to the cotton-gloved hands of "John," and destined
through him to reach the possibly gloveless hands of some other John,
who stands obsequious in the doorway. Now will every lady, after John
has slammed the door, drive happily on to some other door, rearranging,
as she goes, her display of cards, laid as if for a game on the opposite
seat of her carriage, and dealt perhaps in four suits,--her own cards,
her daughters', her husband's, her "Mr. and Mrs." cards, and who knows
how many more? With all this ammunition, what a very _mitrailleuse_ of
good society she becomes; what an accumulation of polite attentions she
may discharge at any door! That one well-appointed woman, as she sits
in her carriage, represents the total visiting power of self, husband,
daughters, and possibly a son or two beside. She has all their
counterfeit presentments in her hands. How happy she is! and how happy
will the others be on her return, to think that dear mamma has disposed
of so many dear, beloved, tiresome, social foes that morning! It will
be three months at least, they think, before the A's and the B's and
the C's will have to be "done" again.

Ah! but who knows how soon these fatiguing letters of the alphabet,
rallying to the defence, will come, pasteboard in hand, to return the
onset? In this contest, fair ladies, "there are blows to take as well as
blows to give," in the words of the immortal Webster. Some day, on
returning, you will find a half-dozen cards on your own table that will
undo all this morning's work, and send you forth on the warpath again. Is
it not like a campaign? It is from this subtle military analogy, doubtless,
that when gentlemen happen to quarrel, in the very best society, they
exchange cards as preliminary to a duel; and that, when French journalists
fight, all other French journalists show their sympathy for the survivor by
sending him their cards. When we see, therefore, these heroic ladies riding