How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal Habits / Embracing an Exposition of the Principles of Good Manners; Useful Hints on the Care of the Person, Eating, Drinking, Exercise, Habits, Dress, Self-culture, and Behavior at Home; the Etiquette of Salutations, Introductions, Receptions, Visits, Dinners, Evening Parties, Conversation, Letters, Presents, Weddings, Funerals, the Street, the Church, Places of Amusement, Traveling, Etc., with Illustrative Anecdotes, a Chapter on Love and Courtship, and Rules of Order for Debating Societies

by Samuel R. Wells

IV.—ENGLISH WOMEN IN HIGH LIFE.

Lord Hardwicke's family consists of his countess, his eldest son (about eighteen or twenty, Lord Royston by courtesy), three of the finest-looking daughters you ever saw, and several younger sons. The daughters—Lady Elizabeth, Lady Mary, and Lady Agnita—are surpassingly beautiful; such development—such rosy cheeks, laughing eyes, and unaffected manners—you rarely see combined. They take a great deal of out-door exercise, and came aboard the Merrimac, in a heavy rain, with Irish shoes thicker soled than you or I ever wore, and cloaks and dresses almost impervious to wet. They steer their father's yacht, walk the Lord knows how many miles, and don't care a cent about rain, besides doing a host of other things that would shock our ladies to death; and yet in the parlor are the most elegant looking women, in their satin shoes and diamonds, I ever saw.... After dinner the ladies play and sing for us, and the other night they got up a game of blind-man's-buff; in which the ladies said we had the advantage, inasmuch as their "petticoats rustled so that they were easily caught." They call things by their names here. In the course of the game, Lord Hardwicke himself was blindfolded, and, trying to catch some one, fell over his daughter's lap on the floor, when two or three of the girls caught him by the legs and dragged his lordship—roaring with laughter, as we all were—on his back into the middle of the floor. Yet they are perfectly respectful, but appear on a perfect equality with each other.—Letter from an Officer of the "Merrimac."