lady herself, stands silent and abashed; or flutteringly hesitates an excuse, or promises instant amendment. Such promise, however, for the time, only increases the storm; until the culprit finds that silence is the best defence, and she is at length ordered "to take the thing away,” and if she please," to throw it on the fire!" Now, ere we proceed, will all our lady readers put their fair white hands upon their gentle hearts, and, with unblushing faces, declare that never, at any time of their lives, did such a scene-as that above described-pass between them and the Dress-Maker; the innocent scape-goat of the faults and the caprice of the employers and the employed? "We pause for a reply." With a short story, illustrative of the hard fate of the DressMaker of the taunts and sufferings which she is called on to bear with "patient shrug"-a story not invented, but taken from the iron book of real life, we propose to end our present essay. The names, the reader may be assured, are the only fictions in the narrative. Fanny White was the daughter of a naval lieutenant, left with her widowed mother, to the bleak charities of the world. She had been tenderly reared and educated; and what is more, seemed born with the delicacy, the refinement, the meekness, the sweetness, of a gentlewoman. When the lieutenant's funeral bill was paid, the widow found herself with one unbroken guinea in the world. Fanny was then sixteen; and, with looks as cheerful as if she were going to a dance, she would rise, long ere daylight, in winter mornings, and pick her path to the "shop," where, by the greatest good luck, she had, very shortly after her father's death, gained admission as a neophyte milliner. Great was the triumph felt by Fanny on the first Saturday night, when she placed in the hand of her mother, full six shillings! Fanny White soon became a favourite, from her exeeeding gentleness, the constant smile that was in her face, and the alacrity with which she would sometimes anticipate the commands of her employers. In a little time, Fanny was the chosen ambassadress to any very particular, any very difficult customer. Thus Fanny walked ⚫ through London streets, yet was there not in her beautiful—her happy face for she was supremely happy in the nine shillings (three being in due time added to the six), that every Saturday she carried home -a charm to awe the trading beldam into silence, albeit Fanny would pass on "in maiden meditation, fancy-free." She walked in the furnace of London, and still the bloom of health and innocence was on her cheeks. Miss Arabella Snaketon-the daughter of a singularly sharp attorney, long since retired from a very lucrative business, to ponder on the good he had done on earth, and to muse upon the reward of heaven-Miss Arabella Snaketon, living at the West, was about to bestow her hand, and twenty thousand pounds, on a surpassingly clever, middle-aged stockbroker, from the East. Miss Arabella Snaketon had ordered her bridal dress-who shall tell the cost of the smuggled lace?-at the "house" where Fanny White studied the arts of millinery. The dress finished, Fanny, followed by the porter, was despatched with it to the impatient virgin -the fluttering and expecting bride. (We tell not what is to follow, in the vain hope that it will touch the hearts of the great family of the Snaketons: people who get gold by the crooked means with which they obtained it, wear an impenetrable armour of guineas above their breasts-yea, they are more impenetrable than crocodiles !-However, to our story.) Fanny, arriving at the house, was speedily summoned to the room, where sat in proudest silence, Mrs. Snaketon, and her daughter Arabella. The mother heard the rustling of the bridal robes, but took no more notice of the polite and beautiful little Milliner, than if she were made of the same material as the Milliner's box. The wedding-dress was displayed; and Mrs. Snaketon, still seated in silent dignity, watched her daughter as she proceeded to try it on: scarcely a word had, as yet, been spoken to the Milliner. Miss Snaketon's head emerged from a sea of satin, and with the ready assistance of Fanny, she had almost donned the garment, when it hung somewhere about the bodice, and Fanny, who was vigilantly regarded by Mrs. Snaketon, endeavoured to pull it straight: in this laudable attempt, however, the hand of Fanny passed over the bare shoulder of Miss Snaketon. Mrs. Snaketon, in a whirlwind of indignation, bounced to her feet! "Why you-you-you impudent hussey!"—it was in these words she addressed the astounded Fanny; "you wouldn't dare"-passion almost denied the mother words-" dare-to-to-touch her flesh!" Fanny White had not the heart to make answer, but after a moment's struggle, she hid her face in her hands, and wept bitterly. Oh! ye high and noble born-for the race of Snaketons is incorrigible-deign to cultivate some sympathy for the poor and lowly! Oh! ye painted porcelain of human clay, think not Fanny Whites mere red-earth pipkins! THE DINER-OUT. BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. THE DINER-Our-we mean the knife-and-fork professor with a good and wide connexion-is a man without a care. If he be not, then are the sources of human anxiety too many and too mysterious for us to fathom. But it is impossible that the Diner-Out can feel one touch of mortal misery: steeped in the gravies of his neighbour-fortified with the venison of his hundred friends-ennobled, yea, sublimated above the petty accidents of this dim spot "which men call earth," by the port, champagne, and burgundy, of his best and dearest acquaintance- -the meaner ills of this life fall upon him, hurtless as hail upon an elephant. He passeth on, made invulnerable to calamity by the contributed benevolence of those the best and brightest of the world -who give dinners. He is at once the child and glory of hospitality; the representative and embodiment of every table-cloth virtue. He is a living and increasing evidence of the goodness of our common nature; a prize biped, fed upon the oil and honey-cakes of his liberal fellow-man. But, it may be objected by some mean-souled wretch, content to feed on figs, penny-rolls, and spring-water-for we have heard of such monsters-that the Diner-Out has no household gods! Ha! ha! has he not? "Better," says the canting fellow, with a starved look of would-be independence, "better to eat an onion at our own hearth, than ortolans at the boards of the rich." Hungry reader! give no ear to such hypocrisy-trust not thin-chapped temperance; but glance at the rosy, shining face-survey the abdominous dignity of our hero, and believe in the Diner-Out! "The Diner-Out has no household gods!" All the better for him he is not called upon to sweat and labour for daily offerings of meat and drink-the said household gods being most clamorous, most constant, in their calls on butcher, baker, and brewer; but, turning from his own unconsecrated hearth, quitting his cold, unguarded fireside, the Diner-Out spreads me his cloth in the midst of a hundred worshippers, having the choice of a hundred temples, wherein he may B |