WOMEN LOVERS.--Perhaps you don't know it, but there are women that fall in love with each other. Woe be to the unfortunate she who _does the courting_! All the cussedness of ingenuity peculiar to the sex is employed by "the other party" in tormenting her. She will flirt with women by the score who are brighter and handsomer than her victim. She will call on them oftener. She will praise their best bonnet, and go into ecstasies over their dresses. She will write them more pink notes, and wear their "tin types;" and when despair has culminated, and sore-hearted Araminta takes to her bed in consequence, then only will this conquering she, step off her pedestal to pick up her dead and wounded. But then women must keep their hand in. Practice makes perfect.
It is curious with what different eyes human beings look upon new clothes, at different stages of existence. Youth, which least needs these auxiliaries, is generally the most clamorous for incessant change. No discomfort in the way of perpetual guardianship over their freshness; no uncomfortable sense of their weight or pressure on the limbs, is heeded, so that the craving for them is satisfied. Nor is there any sex to this foible. Young men are quite as apt to be caught tripping in this regard as their sisters. The new coat may squeeze; the new collar may strangle; the new boots may pinch; the new hat may leave its red mark on the throbbing forehead, but perish the thought of not wearing either! The self-immolation which is undergone in this way finds no mention in "Fox's Book of Martyrs;" but its silent, tearless, uncomplaining heroism exists none the less for all that. From the days when our foremothers had their heads built up in turrets by the hurried hair-dresser, the night previous to some great festive occasion, and sat bolstered upright in bed all night, for fear of tumbling them--down to the present day of ladies' "hair-crimpers," human nature has held its own in this respect.
Middle age, with few exceptions, looks upon new clothes with abated interest. Old clothes, like old customs, fit easy. _Comfort_, anyhow, says middle age--appearances as the gods please; so new shoes lie on the shelf unworn for weeks, for fear of stiff heels or squeaky soles; and new clothes look and feel so spick-and-span and glossy, that middle age can no more say or do a natural thing in them, than the boy could spell right "before he had got the hang of the new school-house;" middle age resents this petty, fretting intrusion on its much-loved quiet. It is irritable, till new clothes begin to _feel_ easy, which is not generally the case till some seam grows threadbare, or some treacherous gap horrifies the easy wearer with renewed visions of innovating fashions and fabrics.