What Washington Society Can Do For Some Of The Sex

It is amusing to see how ruany " Mrs. l'rmdics" tliere are in Washington. And it is - not - amu.-ing to see how inany nice little wives, aud good, plain mothers are spoiled by a taste of gayety in our repuldican capital. One member's wife, when Bhe canie here first, a few monthe ago, was rcally homesick f'or her liftte vülage. But after the cards cauie to her, and she began to fully realizo that she was the wife of a nieiiiber of Congress, what airs the country mite took on herself. Ladies whose claiiu to distinction rested upon their innut- refinecnent and intelligence, and not upou accidental position of their husbands, were pased unnoticed save by the faintest fsmiling inclination ; and the grade or rank of a lady's husband could have been told by a looker-on by the warmth or coolness with wliich the wife of the new ïaciuber weleoined thcm. The chango in the toilet oi tliu lady w;is iiiurked. Her cj es etgeriy i ran over t!io dre-ses of lier acquaintaoceï From a modest lady in a plain black silk and smooth, brown locks, she burst into the less distingue Btyly of light satin and bear shuuldera, and pyramid-shaped head, with the surrounding thatch of' trizzes which hides the broad, beautiful brow and makes every woman look like an idiot. The lady uow trips to her hired cab cvery day, and givcs her orders tg the coachman with an icy, fault-finding tone, which she, poor soul, does not, know indicates her newness to the luxury of' a hired team and liveiy. Her days are a round of ceaseless, meaningless todyism ; her nights wild reveis, where noither sense nor comfort ever show their plain, old-fshioned faces. This woman, before her husband's election, would have sat up with her neighbor's sick child. She would have made its tiny gravuclothes and put flowers in its daad hands, the while lier eyei were ruisty with yiuiathy. With her own needie aud thrcad ahe would have put the orape bands on the parents' clothing, and watched that nojarry sound or care grated upon them the little while they were left. alone with their dead. She would have tayed in their lwelling, and put away little dreaSW and broken toys while the family was at the cetuetery. She will never do it apain. Never again find time tor the sweet ameDities of life, or the comforting sympathy with the bereaved. She will never again be satisfied to live in a country town, or go to church, sewing societies, or sit up with the sick. She is above that now. And yet, she was a sweet young girl ; a fair youog wife ; a gentle youDg rootber. Left in retirement she would have bloomed out a long fragrant life of good deods, and been truly mourned at her death. Soine liearts that she had bound up would have remembered her, perhaps, aa a clear-eyed saint, who wore a soft white cap and a plain alpaca dress in her oíd age ; and on autumn Sundays, when quiet hung like a benediction over the still woods, they would have led little ehildren around the siuiple headstone, having loitered and told of her lovely life uittil tha memory breathed into infant heartn would, like the seed in the soft, raellow earth, have brought forth good deeds in souic future strait. Thus, although dead, she would live again. But now she is spoiled for everything. She will fly her round, ffitter away her day, drop out her life, and not a ripple on the tide of fashionable society will ghow where slio han gone down. She will perchaoce have a big monument ; her oulogy will be meaningless, and her epitaph awaken no tender thought, in any heart.