_Or, Diogenes the Younger_
_The Lady with a Mission._--She will fill your house with parsons or
professors, lecture you on her pet hobby when she can get no other
audience (which will be pretty often), consider all your old friends
frivolous, and treat you with supreme contempt if you venture to hint
that you like your dinner punctually, and properly cooked.
_The Lady of Fashion._--She will regard you as an appendage, a
cheque-drawing animal, a useful purveyor of equipages and dresses and
diamonds and lace, a person to be ignored as much as possible in
Society.
_The Millionaire's Daughter._--She will persistently make you aware that
it is _her_ house you live in, _her_ carriage you drive, that the
servants are _hers_, the dinners _hers_--that, in fact, she has bought
you, and given for you much more than you are really worth.
_The Pious-Parochial Lady._--She will devote all her time to the
distribution of tracts, the inspection of cottages, the collection of
gossip, and interviews with the curate. Each curate will be a more
"blessed" man than his predecessor, especially if he have the shifty
eyes, aggressive teeth, narrow forehead, and shambling knees which
modern curatism has developed.
_The Female Novelist._ She will sit up all night writing improprieties,
and pass all day in town, worrying publishers, who are at present sad
victims of the irrepressible petticoat.
_The Horsey Woman._ She will laugh at you as a muff if you don't ride
across country, buy "screws" from her particular friends that you will
have to sell for as many tens as she gave hundreds, and cost you a
fortune in doctors' bills by breaking her collar-bone at least once
every season.
_The Gushing Female._ She will devour you with kisses, to the injury of
your shirt-front, or weep on your bosom, with much the same result. To
her either is equally delightful.
_The Widow._ Diogenes pauses. The theme is too great for him. _Vide Mr.
Weller, sen._, in _Pickwick, passim._
* * * * *