train, and yourself sustained in the trying position by being held true to the perpendicular by the close proximity of your next neighbor. This can be borne by the most sensitive, owing to the delicate nature of the martyrdom.

Between the hours of 9 and 10, and many hours afterwards, carriage after carriage rolled up to the stately mansion, lately occupied by our present minister to England. Two savage policemen guarded the gate, and the coming guests slipped through their fingers as easily as if they had been attaches of the whisky ring. Once out of the carriage you found yourself standing upon the dainty new matting, from which your feet never departed until they pressed the Persian carpet of the inner hall. All wrapped and hooded and veiled, you ascended the broad staircase to find at the first landing an American citizen, of bronze complexion and crispy hair, who led you to the ladies' dressing-room. Handmaidens of the African type instantly seized you and divested you of your outward shell or covering. A dainty French lady's maid stood ready to give the last finish to your toilet or to coax into place any stubborn, mulish curl, and to repair, if it was necessary, any little damage or flaw to your otherwise faultless complexion. When you were "all right," you found your attendant cavalier awaiting you at the door to conduct you, as well as himself, to the presence of the sun and moon of the evening, around whom all this growing planetary system revolved. A cryer at the door calls out the name of the cavalier and lady, in a stentorian voice. You shudder. This is the first plunge into fashionable life; but you come to the surface and find that you are face to face with the duke and duchess, in the republican sense of the word. Your hand is first taken by Mr. McCarthy, who is a tall and elegant person, whom you also know to be one of the "solid men" in Congress, as he certainly is without. You next touch the finger tips of "my lady," a noble matron in purple velvet, old point lace, and flashing diamonds. At her right hand stand her two pretty daughters, with real roses in their cheeks, and

real complexions, delicate enough to have been stolen from milky pearls. No jewels but their bright eyes. No color in their faultless white muslin dress, except little flecks of green that underlie the rich Valenciennes. You leave them, and smuggle yourself in the enclosures of a deep, old-fashioned window. The curtain half hides you while you gaze upon a shifting, glittering panorama, more gorgeous than a midsummer night's dream. The air is laden with the perfume of rare exotics and the fragrance of the countless handkerchiefs of cob-web lace. Just beyond you at the right stands the servant of Her Majesty, Victoria of England. There is nothing to denote his rank or position in his plain citizen's dress. A modest order, worn on his left breast, tells you that he is the successor of Sir Frederick Bruce; but in personal appearance Sir Edward Thornton bears no resemblance to his illustrious predecessor. He seems to be enjoying an animated conversation with a lady of rank belonging to his own legation. Monsieur the French Minister, exquisite, dandified, polished as a steel rapier, is talking to the host of the evening. Count Raasloff, the Danish minister, is exchanging compliments with Major-General Hunter. Though all the grand entertainments in Washington are graced by many of the diplomats resident here, they seem to get through the evening as if it were a part of their official duty. They cling together like any other colony surrounded by "outside barbarians." The marble face of a petite French countess never relaxed a line from its icy frigidity until she found herself stranded in the dressing room up stairs, safely in the hands of the foreign waiting-maid. Then such chattering-the artificial singing birds in the supper room were entirely eclipsed. But let us leave at once these cold, haughty dames, who have nothing to boast of but the so-called blue blood in their veins. The world would never know they existed, unless some pen-artist sketched their portraits. We have had no dazzling foreign star in society here since the departure of Lady Napier. Oh! spirit of a fairy godmother,

guide our pen while we touch our own American belles, the fairest sisterhood under the sun. "Who is the belle of the ball room to-night?" every one asks. You must not be told her name, reader, but you shall know everything else. Just imagine Madame Pompadour in the palmiest days of her regal beauty, stepping out of the old worm-eaten frame, imbued with life and clad in one of those white brocaded silks upon which has been flung the most exquisite flowers by the hand of the weaver. Hair puffed and frizzled and curled until the lady herself could not tell where the real leaves off and the false begins. The front breadth of dress is not more than half a yard in depth, but the long-pointed train at the back could not be measured by the eye; a yard-stick must be brought into requisition. There is a dainty little patch on her left cheek, and another still less charming on her temple. A necklace of rare old-fashioned mosaic is clasped around her throat, and a member of Congress from Iowa, who is said to be a judge, pronounces her to be the most beautiful woman in Washington. Oh! that newspaper letters did not have to come to an end. Room for one of Chicago's fair brides, the only beloved daughter of Senator Harlan, Mr. Robert Lincoln's accomplished wife. She looked every inch the lily in this sisterhood of flowers. She wore heavy, corded white silk, with any quantity of illusion and pearls.

So far hath the story been told without a word about the feast. The land, the sky and the ocean were rifled, and made to pay tribute to the occasion. Artificial singing birds twittered in the flowers that adorned the tables, while a rainbow of light encircled the same. This beautiful effect was accomplished by the gas-fitter's art, and this exquisite device came very near bringing Chicago to grief, for the Honorable N. B. Judd found himself at the end of the magic bow, but instead of finding the bag of gold he just escaped a good "scorching."

Again we touched the hand of the lady hostess, and then all was over. OLIVIA.

all the graces, neatly fringed by a decent beard, as every respectable man's should be. Hands small and bloodless, the usual accompaniment of the powerful brain of an active thinker. Last, but not least, there is enough electricity about him to send a first-class message around the world, with plenty left for all home purposes.

The Senate chamber is a painful place for the eye to rest this winter. Its furniture, carpets, and many other etceteras are suggestive of molten heat. There is a flaming red carpet on the floor, and every chair and sofa blushes like a carnation rose. Red and yellow stare the unfortunate Senator in the face whichever way he turns. Even what little sunlight manages to sneak into this celebrated chamber steals in clothed in those two prismatic, nightmare colors. When the galleries are packed, as they were to-day, there is scarcely more air than in an exhausted receiver, and it is astonishing that so many delicate women can remain so many hours subjected to such an atmosphere. And now that the galleries are sprinkled with dark fruit, thick as a briery hedge in blackberry time; this, taken into consideration, with many other wise reasons, may help to account for the large Democratic gain in the late election returns.

Never within memory, not even during the extravagance of the late war, have so many costly costumes adorned the persons of our American women as the present winter in Washington. And the Capitol, with its oriental luxuriance, seems a fitting place for the grand display. A handsome blonde, enveloped in royal purple velvet, without being relieved by so much as a shadow of any other color or material, brings the words of the Psalmist to all thoughtful minds: "They toil not, neither do they spin (or write), yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." OLIVIA.

SPEAKER COLFAX.

HIS AFFECTION FOR HIS MOTHER-OTHER CHARACTERISTICS.

WASHINGTON, March 2, 1868.

The season of Lent has folded its soft, brooding wings over the weary devotees of fashion in Washington. Luxuriant wrappers, weak tea, and soft-boiled eggs have succeeded the Eugenie trains, chicken salad, and all those delicious fluids that are supposed to brace the human form divine. The penitential season of Lent is just as fashionable, in its way, as the brilliant season which preceded it. There is nothing left for the "Jenkinses" but "to fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away."

But as hardy native flowers defy the chilly frost, so Speaker Colfax's hospitable doors swing upon their noiseless hinges once a week, and the famous house known as the "Sickles mansion" becomes a bee-hive, swarming, overflowing with honeyed humanity; and let it be recorded that no man in Washington is socially so popular, so much beloved, as Schuyler Colfax. General Grant, the man who dwells behind a mask, is worshiped by the multitudes, who rush to his mansion as Hindoos to a Budhist temple; but Schuyler Colfax possesses the magic quality of knowing how to leave the Speaker's desk, and, gracefully descending to the floor, place himself amongst the masses of the American people, no longer above them, but with them, one of them-a king of hearts in his own right; a knave also, because he steals first and commands afterwards.

It is needless to say that all adjectives descriptive of fashionable life at the capital have long since been worn thread-bare. Why didn't Jenkins tell the truth and say,