' In short, she has the most comfortable repository of stupid
friends to have recourse to, of anybody I ever knew. Now what I have to
warn you against, Mary, is the sin of ever listening to any of her
advices. She will preach to you about the pinning of your gown and the
curling of your hair till you would think it impossible not to do exactly
what she wants you to do. She will inquire with the greatest solicitude
what shoemaker you employ, and will shake her head most significantly
when she hears it is any other than her own. But if ever I detect you
paying the smallest attention to any of her recommendations, positively
I shall have done with you."
Mary laughingly promised to turn a deaf ear to all Mrs. Wiseacre's
wisdom; and her cousin proceeded:
"Then here follows a swarm as, thick as idle motes in sunny ray,' and
much of the same importance, methinks, in the scale of being. Married
ladies only celebrated for their good dinners, or their pretty
equipages, or their fine jewels. How I should scorn to be talked of as
the appendage to any soups or pearls! Then there are the daughters of
these ladies--Misses, who are mere misses, and nothing more. Oh! the
insipidity of a mere Miss! a soft simpering thing with pink cheeks, and
pretty hair, and fashionable clothes _sans_ eyes for anything but
lovers_-sans_ ears for anything but flattery--_sans_ taste for anything
but balls_--sans_ brains for anything at all! Then there are ladies who
are neither married nor young, and who strive with all their might to
talk most delightfully, that the charms of their conversation may efface
the marks of the crows' feet; but 'all these I passen by, and nameless
numbers moe.
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