made hundreds of young men ruin themselves for the glory of being seen talking to a Cora Pearl. Now what do you think he has done.  He has actually brought out a complete edition of his pieces, with a preface, in which, Papa tells me, he plays the moralist.  He has unfolded all the vice—­crowded the theatres to see a bad woman in a consumption—­painted the demi-monde—­with a purpose!  All the world has laboured under the idea that the purpose was piles of gold.  But now, the locker being full, and the key turned, and in the young gentleman’s pocket, he dares to put himself in the robe of a professor, to say it was not the money he cared about—­it was the lesson.  He is a reformer—­a worshipper of virtue!  We shall have the author of Jack Sheppard start as a penologist soon.  My dear, the cowardice of men when dealing with poor women is bad enough; but it is not by half so repulsive as their hypocrisy.  Ugh!

“Any news of the handsome Mr. Daker?  It strikes me, dear Emmy, ’Uncle Sharp’ didn’t send him up from Maidstone with a letter of introduction to his niece for nothing.

“Your affectionate friend,
“CARRIE C.”

CHAPTER VIII.

“OH, YES!” AND “ALL RIGHT!”

Lucy was privileged to read the following:—­

Miss Carrie Cockayne to Miss Emily Sharp.

“Rue Millevoye, Paris.

“MY DEAREST EMMY,—­I should certainly not venture to offer any remarks on taste to you, my love, under ordinary circumstances.  But I am provoked.  I have passed a severe round of soirees of every description.  Jaded with the fantastic activities of a fancy-dress genteel riot, I have been compelled to respond to the intimation of the Vicomtesse de Bois de Rose, that “on sautera”.  I have jumped with the rest.  I have half killed myself with sirops, petit-fours, those microscopic caricatures of detestable British preparation—­sandwiches (pronounced sonveetch), bouillon, and chocolate, in the small hours; ices in tropical heats; foie-gras and champagne about two hours after healthy bedtime, and tea like that which provoked old Lady Gargoyle to kick over the tea-table in her boudoir—­in her eightieth year, too.  The Gargoyles (I shall have much to tell you about them when we meet) were always an energetic race; and I feel the blood tingling in me while my eye wanders over the impertinences of the French chroniqueurs, when they are pleased to be merry at the expense of la vieille Angleterre.  I hold I am right; am I not?—­that when even a chroniqueur—­that smallest of literary minnows—­undertakes to criticize a foreign nation, at least the equal of his own, he should start with some knowledge of its language, history, manners, and customs.  But what do we find?  The profoundest ignorance of the rudiments of English.  The special correspondent sent to London by the Figaro to