Year: 1878

1t Is amusing to see how MANY Mrs.
Proudies" there are in Washington. And
1t is-not-amusing to see how many
nice little wives, and good, plain moth
ers are spoiled BY taste of gayetv in our
republican capital. One members wife


when she came here first, a few months
ago, was really homesick for her little
village. But after the cards came TO her.
and she began to fully realize that she
was the wife of a member of Congress
what airs the country mite took on her
SELF. LADIES whose claim to distinction
rested upon their innate refinement and
intelligence, and not upon accidental DO
sluon OF their husbands, were passed IN
noticed save by the faintest smiling in
cllnatlon and the grade or rank of
lady's husband could have been told by
iooker-on by the warmth or GOODNESS
with which the wife of the new member
welcomed them. The chance i'm fine
toilette OF the lady was marked. Her
eyes eagerly ran over the dresses of her
acquaintance. From modest lady in a
PLAIN Dlack silk and smooth, brown
locks, she burst into the less distingue
style OF light satin and bare shoulders.
and Pyramd-shaped head, with the sur
rounding match of friZzes which hides
the broad beautiful brow and makese every
woman look like an idiot. The lady now
trips to her hired cab every day, and
gives her orders to the coachman with
an icy, fault-fnding tone, which she, poor
soul, does not know indicates her new
ness to the luxury of a hired team and


livery. Her days are a round of cease
less, meaningless toadyism; her nights
wild revels, where neither sense nor
comfort ever show their plain, old-fash-
loned faces. This woman, before her
husbands election, would have sat I'D
with her neighbor's sick child. She
would have made its tiny grave-clothes
and put flowers in its dead hands the
while her eyes were misty with sympa-
thy. With her own needle and thread
she would have put the Grape bands on
the parents clothing, and watched that
no Jarry sound or care grated upon them
the little while they were left alone with
their dead. She would have STAYED in
the dwelling, and put away little dresses
and broken toys while the family were
at the cemetery. She will never do it
again. Never again find time for the
sweet amenities of life, or the comforting
sympathy with the bereaYed. She will
never again be satisfied to live in a coun-
try town, or go to church, sewing socie-
Cies, or sit up with the sick. She is above
that now.


And yet, she was sweet young girl
a fair young wife; gentle young moth
er. Left in retirement she would have
bloomed out long fragrant life of good
deeds, and been truly mourned at her
death. Some hearts that she had bound
upwould have remembered her, perhaps,
as clear-eyed saint, who wore soft
white cap and plain alpaca dress in her
old age; and on autumn Sundays, when
quiet hung like a benediction over the
still woods, they would have led little
children around the simple headstOne,
having loitered and told of her lovely life
until the memory breathed into infant
hearts would, like the seed in the soft,
mellow earth, have brought forth coed
deeds in some future strait. Thus, al
though dead, she would live again. But
now she is spoiled for everything. She
will fly her round, filter away her day,
drop out her life, and not ripple on the
tide of fashionable society will show
where she has gone down. She will per-
chance have big monument; her eulo-
gy will be meaningless, and her epitaph
awaken no tender thought in any heart.