Next in favor to these tulle dresses, for evening parties, are the dresses of glacé silk or Italian taffety, trimmed with black velvet, disposed in a variety of ways. A very favorite style for the skirts of these dresses, consists of two or three broad flounces, each edged with rows of narrow black velvet, either of graduated or of uniform width. The cut velvet, which we have already frequently mentioned, forms an exquisite trimming for dresses of glacé silk. For evening parties, pink, yellow or blue are the favorite colors. We have seen a dress of lemon-color silk, having two broad flounces on the skirt. Each flounce was edged with three graduated rows of black velvet; the lowest row being rather more than an inch wide, and above the upper row of velvet there was a row of black vandyked lace; the points of the vandykes turning upward. Cut velvet of a rich leaf pattern is frequently employed for front trimmings. A row of this foliage sometimes runs up each side of the skirt, or is placed quite in the tablier style. The corsage and sleeves should be trimmed to correspond.

For evening head dresses, a lavish use is made of gold and silver, pearls, bugles, and beads of various colors. Flowers and feathers have, however, lost none of the favor they have so long enjoyed. A very light and showy kind of evening coiffure, is composed of a kind of foliage of blonde, intermingled with marabouts and grapes of gold or silver. Some wreaths of a novel kind just introduced, have leaves made of shaded crape, and intermingled with small tulips made of lace. These wreaths are perfect chefs-d'œuvres of lightness. Wreaths of velvet foliage, brown, purple or green intermingled with small flowers or leaves of gold, have a very rich and pretty effect. Leaves of blue or pink crape, intermingled with small buds of gold or silver, are also favorite head-dresses. Other wreaths consist merely of leaves of guipure blonde, supporting a narrow cordon of light tea roses, and terminating at each side by long drooping leaves of blonde intermingled with sprays and rosebuds, falling very low on the neck, and inclining backward. This is an extremely graceful style of head-dress. The Parisian fleuristes have given fresh proofs of their taste and ingenuity in the production of several new wreaths-specimens of which have just made their appearance in London. Of these novelties the most remarkable is the Guirland Impériale. It is composed of gold open-work leaves, and forms a point in the centre of the forehead just above the bandeaux. The wreath enlarges at each side, where it is intermingled with small violets; the effect of which in combination with the gold leaves is very elegant. Another is distinguished by the name of the Guirlande Pauline. It is composed of small flowers of three colours, blue, pink and white. These flowers, which are shaded in graduated tinte, are so skilfully grouped that the harmonious blending of the colours produces almost a rainbow effect. The Guirlande Panline forms a double cordon; one portion of which passes across the forehead above the full bandeaux, and the other passes above the plaits or twists at the back part of the head. This wreath is finished on one side by a white rose, with a profusion of buds, which drop very low behind the ear.

THE LADIES OF THE CREATION.

WOMAN.

OR, HOW I WAS CURED OF BEING A STRONG-MINDED I AM a young wife, and not an old woman. In fact I can still venture to give my real age to the inquisitive gentleman who comes round with the census papers, and I have not been driven to seal up the fly-leaf of the family, which records "AMELIA JANE, born 1st May, 1830."

My husband, as all my friends assure me, is all a man ought to be. I think he might be a leetle less obstinate, and I confess he has a bad habit of bringing his old bachelor friends home to dinner without warning. When I remonstrate, he is very eloquent about the unimportance of what there may be for dinner, the chief thing being a hearty welcome, &c., &c., &c., though I must say I've never found him exactly indifferent to what is served up.

Still I don't complain-quite the reverse. I'm very happy now-I say now, because it was not always so. I propose to disclose, for the benefit of young women about to marry, the secret of our former discomfort, and our present happiness. The fact is, I was brought up a strong-minded woman. I was educated on the Pestalozzian systemtaught to ask questions about everything and to insist upon answers, and to question the answers. After I had pumped my governess dry in this way, nonplussed papa, and gravelled everybody in the house, no wonder I was found a nuisance, They tried to find food for my inquiring disposition, by employing my restless curiosity on all sorts of "ologies," by sending me to all sorts of “ courses," till my intellectual digestion became seriously impaired. Before eighteen I had taken to green spectacles, and PROFESSOR FARADAY'S Friday night lectures. One thing, however, I do owe to the Royal Institution-I met my husband there. He was charmingly ignorant; I explained things to him, and his first avowal took place after I had nearly blown him up by attempting to decompose oxygen, in which I only succeeded in discomposing myself. He attended three courses at the Institution, and declared he had a turn for science, which I found out afterwards was only a penchant for me. During three seasons we sat on the same bench, inhaled the same gases, started at the same explosions. He put a great many questions to the lecturer, and one question to me, which I answered in the affirmative. After our marriage, I found that his taste for science declined rapidly. He asked me no more questions about the chemical affinities, and seemed perfectly insensible to the curious discoveries daily taking place in the entozoic and paleontological fields of investigation. The only questions he seemed inclined to entertain were questions of house expenses; and when one Friday I proposed that we should attend Professor FARADAY's lecture on a candle, he declared he didn't cáre a snuff about such things, and that he wished as I was married, I would not bother my head with such stuff! This was very painful to me, and we had our first dispute about this point. I quoted MRS. SOMERVILLE'S example to prove that a woman may be deep in science, and make no worse wife for it. I told him about the Russian princess with whom ECLER corresponded, and the professoress who used to lecture at Bologna,

and altogether I felt that it was an abominable thing to condemn poor women to such hardships, which, after all, men are better suited for.

After EMILY and her cousin had left, EDWARD insisted on my taking him to hear the Band play at St. James's. Really I had never before thought EDWARD 80 frivolous! However, it was not worth while to contradict him, so I took him. When we got to St. James's, I saw at once what it was that made him so anxious to hear the band. Imagine my feelings when I found that it was composed of the nicest young ladies, in such very becoming uniforms, with a stout old drum-majoress. Instead of fifes and drums, the instruments used were guitars and pianos, and they played JULLIEN'S polkas, and marched away to the tune of "The girl's we've left behind us. Altogether it struck me as being a style of music better suited to dance to, thap to march to battle upon, and I could not but admit to myself that the old fife and drum was the more spirit-stirring of the two.

EDWARD Wanting a new hat, I went with him to buy one; but he was such a time about it, trying on upwards of a dozen hats, that I thought I never should have got him away. I never imagined before that shopping could be such a nuisance, and then I saw at once that it is a merciful arrangement which sends us to shop, and our husbands to wait for us.

I left EDWARD at GUNTER's and walked home. When I reached our own door I was stopped by two over-dressed, tawdry, fat women of the Jewish persuasion, who, tapping me on the shoulder, produced a piece of paper, which they called a writ, and informed me that I was their prisoner, on a judgment for one of EDWARD's horrid cigar bills. I pointed out to them that the debt was incurred by him, and begged them to take him; but they told me that the law now made the wife answerable for the husband's debts, than which nothing can be more unjust. I felt at once that this was not a change for the better, and that, after all, it was quite right that if somebody must pay or go to prison, it should be the husband, and not the wife.

I was so annoyed by this latter circumstance, that I went to call upon MRS. BOROUGHBY (a recently elected Member of Parliament) an old schoolfellow of Mama's, who had always proved my constant friend. Such a scene of confusion as I then witnessed, I shall never forget! The stairs were littered all over with brooms, dustpans, candle-sticks, and coal-scuttles, and the drawing-room, into which I was allowed to find my way as I could, was in as great confusion as a broker's shop. On an elegant ottoman were a dust-pan and a bundle of wood; the sofas were strewn with blue books, a pair of slippers, an opera cloak, and the housemaid's box of black lead and brushes.

An old grey parrot had got out of his cage and was busily employed in picking holes in a beautiful table-cover, whilst "Buttons," the page, was seated at the piano, endeavouring to pick out the notes of an Ethiopian melody, called (I believe) "Sich a Gettin Up Stairs."

When I succeeded in making the young gentleman aware of my presence, he coolly told me that "Missus was busy, and wouldn't be disturbed by nobody; and that Master had gone out in a huff,

'cos he'd been rowed for wanting to go to the play, as Missus was gettin' up her Parliament speech for that evenin"!"

This explained to me the state of the "Home Department;" and I left without seeing MRS. BOROUGHBY, convinced that the house in which woman should have a voice was not the House of Commons.

And so my dream went on. Everywhere I found that when women attempted men's work, they proved their own unfitness for it-discovered that our notions of the happiness, and freedom, and dignity of the other sex are founded on a mistake, and that it only depends on us to make them our slaves and adorers. It is true, we are not in the House of Commons; but what, after all, is public opinion? The opinion of men, if we do justice to ourselves, is the opinion of men's wives. Is there any field for political manœuvre or legislation like Home? What is a Chancellor of the Exchequer to a wife?-what the Budget to the weekly house-bills?—what the difficulty of wringing the supplies out of the House of Com mons to that of extracting a cheque from a hardup hubby? Depend upon it there is employment for any amount of jockeyship and management without putting one's head beyond the street door. And so I was cured of my notion of putting woman on an equality with man.

I saw that the question between the sexes was not one of superiority or inferiority; that our two spheres lay apart from each other, but that each exercised on the other a most blessed influenceman's sphere, the world; woman's sphere, the home; the former bracing the gentle influence of the latter by its rough, sharp lessons of effort, endurance, and antagonism; the latter tempering the hardening effects of the former by its selfdenial, its sympathies, and its affections. And I felt that if we are to compare these two spheres, the woman's-while the narrower-is, in many respects, the nobler of the two, and her part in the battle of life not unfrequently the more important and dangerous one.

This was the lesson of my dream. I awoke just as EDWARD let himself in with his latch-key, and I begged his pardon for my silly forwardness. I don't believe I have any I have never had another argument since; and "mission" that can take me away from my own fire-side.

DAMSON CHEESE.-Put the damsons in a stone jar, which place in an oven or on a stove until the juice runs freely, the fruit is perfectly tender, and the stones separate from it. Remove the stones with a silver or wooden spoon; measure the pulp in a preserving pan and place it on the fire and boil, until the liquid is evaporated, and the fruit left dry. Whilst this is doing, have ready a quantity of white loaf sugar, allowing half a pound of sugar for every quart of pulp, as measured when put into the pan. Let this sugar be rolled fine, and then heated in the oven in a pan until it is so hot that the hand cannot be kept on it. In this hot state mix the sugar thoroughly with the dry pulp, also hot from the fire. It will become very firm, and does not require to go on the fire again. Put it into jars or glasses whilst hot, and when cold, cover and put away.