on everything that can be covered, and lace
curtains are moved; and, in fact, when prepared for the holidays, the
whole house appears as if ready to stand a heavy and protracted siege.

Even the garden and greenhouses are rigorously locked; wire shades and
iron hurdles protect tender seedlings and grass edges; the head gardener
wears a countenance of mingled dread and determination; and in the
stables nothing is left get-at-able save the boys’ own ponies, a
venerable ‘four-wheel,’ and sundry odds and ends of ancient harness,
which no one could hurt because its condition is quite hopeless already.

And in a town house, when the holidays are within appreciable distance,
over and over again have I not seen similar preparations, though on a
smaller scale? Have I not noted how nurse puts away the children’s best
toys; how theand giving her reasons, which, of course, will be
received kindly and in good faith by her friends. I am convinced that
this absurd striving after society is at the bottom of the falseness of
most of our English entertainments, and I trust some day to see
‘parties’ on a much broader and more satisfactory basis than they are at
present, and I therefore beg all young householders to pause before they
begin the same old round of costly gaiety, and to consider if they at
least cannot bring about a better state of things. I have often in
different houses seen with amazement how invitations are issued, and
wondered if I am the only person who is thus taken behind the scenes and
shown how hollow such invitations often are. Surely I must be, or else
the great