I have frequently observed your praiseworthy though unavailing attempts
to reduce your domestic expenses, by getting your wards and daughters
"off your hands." I regret to say I have seen much energy on your parts
misdirected, and many an elegant and expensive supper given by you to no
purpose.
Now, to prevent these failures in future, and to allow the "dear girls"
a better chance of getting "comfortably settled" in life, I am about to
confide to you a secret, which experience has shown me to be well worth
knowing.
What I would first ask you, is the primary object of all evening
parties? Why do you engage Weippert's band, or order your supper and
ices from Gunter? Is it—candidly now between ourselves—to make your
friends happy? Or is it not to catch some amiable and independent young
bachelor, who is willing to make your girl the partner of his bosom and
banker's account? Of course you are people of the world, and don't mind
throwing one of Gunter's sprats to catch an aristocratic herring.
To command success, however, in this style of marital fishing, one
thing, let me tell you, above all, is necessary, and that is, a
conservatory leading from the ball-room. Think, oh ye Parents and
Guardians! for a moment of the advantages of such an arrangement.
The bashful or timid young man, after the quadrille, is sure to propose
a temporary retirement among the flowers, because they afford him
something beyond the weather to talk about, and if he only be
matrimonially disposed, no place—depend upon it—is more likely to make
him speak out. For instance, he asks the young lady to pick him a
Camelia, she does so of course, and, if she has nice eyelashes, takes
advantage of the opportunity afforded her, to display some little
timidity and the said eyelashes while arranging the leaves. But if not
blest with those bewitching adjuncts to a pretty face, I have known a
half-suppressed sigh from the interesting creature answer very well; for
your bashful young gentleman very frequently labours under the notion
that he is a lady-killer; and ten to one but he is thus led to think he
has made a conquest of the poor girl, and so, resolving to make her
happy, proposes on the spot.
The conservatory is quite as useful for what is called "the fast man,"
or for the man of the world, or indeed for any other species of the
genus _homo_; though of course the treatment must in each of these cases
be judiciously varied.
Your "fast man"—who is generally given to capacious coat-sleeves, and an
eccentric narrowness of neckcloth—prefers a young girl with "something
to say for herself," and who does not leave him to supply all the
conversation. "The agreeable rattle" should therefore be kept up by the
young lady, and if the dear girl have a pretty hand she may take off her
"Houbigant," and amuse herself by dipping her taper fingers in the basin
of the little fountain, with its three miserable gold fish. The "fast
man" will then probably essay a joke, or a compliment, whereupon the
young lady may playfully sprinkle him with a few drops of water; and
thus, doubtlessly, matters will proceed, until the "rapid" gentleman
thinks her "a deuced nice girl with no nonsense about her;" so that the
flirtation, if not nipped by bad management in the bud, may, in due
course of time, blossom into a proposal.
For a sentimental young man the "language of flowers" presents a very
"taking" subject for conversation; while to the scientific bachelor, a
conservatory affords an easy means for a botanical discussion; besides,
the examination of a plant is sure to bring the faces of the couple into
proximity; and no disciple of Linnæus, however ardent, is proof against
that peculiar thrill which is caused by a pretty girl's glossy and
perfumed ringlets brushing against the cheek.
With the matter-of-fact young man a conservatory is quite as useful. He
likes his own comfort better than anything else, and considers the
supper the best part of the evening; a seat among the flowers saves him
the trouble of dancing, so that he will think any young lady "a very
sensible girl" for proposing such a thing; and, as he considers himself
a very sensible young man, why of course the sensible young man would
like a sensible young lady for his wife.
In all these arrangements a maiden aunt, or the useful "friend of the
family," should be stationed near the conservatory door; for
occasionally the "dear girls" are disposed to flirt with Captains, with
large moustachios and small means. All elderly mammas having unmarried
daughters should be carefully excluded, as every mother of a family is
well known to take a malicious delight in interrupting promising affairs
of this kind, when their own girls do not form part of the
_tête-à-tête_.
Believe me, my dear Friends, yours very sincerely,
A VICTIM TO A CONSERVATORY.