what Malapropian expression in occasional use-but not a perfect lady.' A perfect lady means, then, a lady who keeps to her own place, or what is considered to be her place by those who use the words. She is a lady who lets it clearly be seen that she is incapable of doing anything for herself that a servant can possibly do for her, whether it be putting on coals or tidying a room, who is always somewhat expensively dressed, who keeps perfectly calm and self-possessed whatever accidents happen, who is coldly polite to her inferiors, and yet never rude, and who, in fact, treats her household as if they were made of a different clay. This is the perfect lady. Truly a not very interesting or amiable figure.

But granted that we have got the true definition of a perfect lady,' how comes it that this monster is the ideal of the British servant? The question is a difficult one; but the answer, though hard, is not, we think, beyond all conjecture. It is certainly not because British servants are of a slavish disposition; for though they show a tendency to snobbishness, they are as a class extremely inclined to assert their independence. We believe that the worship of the perfect lady is due rather to a sense of self-preservation. Servants, like all other people who respect themselves and are in a subordinate position, dread above all things personal humiliation. But personal humiliations arise most easily when there is intimate contact between employer and employed. Hence the servant feels safest and most protected when the master and mistress keep themselves aloof.

The perfect lady is the lady with whom there is least chance of a collision, in which the mistress always starts at an advantage. Hence, though in a particular case a

servant may prefer a nice lady' in the abstract, what she yearns for is 'a perfect lady,' a lady with whom the chances of words, patronage, or sarcasms are reduced to a minimum. 'A perfect lady' such as we have described is, in fact, the servant's ideal, because it is the type which she feels safest with. Heaven forbid that we should say anything directly in favour of such an unpleasant person! We can, however, easily understand the attractive force to servants of 'a perfect lady.'

WHERE SHALL WE GO?

WHERE shall we go? That is the question that dins itself into the ears of a hundred busy men the moment that the holidays come in sight. There are some methodical and well-ordered men who have the answer perfectly pat: 'I am going this year to the East or West corner,' whichever it may be, 'of this or that district. Last year I did the other half of the county.' 'I am,' continues such a one by way of explanation, 'working through the South of England; and when I have finished I intend to do the Pennine range year by year till I have finished them.' For such a person the holiday question has, of course, no terrors. He knows not only where he is going, but, apparently, what he is going to do when he gets there. The odds are that he will take his reluctant wife and children first through the geology of the district upon which he alights like a locust, then through the archæology, and finally, if there is any time over, he will go for' the parish churches, and copy into a notebook as many of the epitaphs as he can read by wetting his fingers and rubbing the tombstones. For persons not blessed with so mechanical a genius or, perhaps it would be fairer to say, less contented with innocent pleasures, settling 'where we shall go this year' is nothing less than a nightmare.

If

one were only rich, full of energy, not tired by railway journeys, not sick at sea, contented with grubby lodgings, not annoyed by very hotelly hotel prices, impervious to typhoid fever, and capable of being cheerful under every possible set of circumstances, including the disturbance of every settled habit and the loss of every home comfort, one's holiday would, of course, be a little bit of Paradise.

When, however, one is not endowed with all these advantages, but is simply a plain, middle-class, middleaged man, with very little snap left in him by eight hours a day at the office since last September, the question 'where to go' comes clad in terrors, many and horrible. Nothing is easier than to face a holiday in the abstract. When a holiday is still a long way off, and when there is no immediate fear of having to put them into practice, it is quite pleasant to make holiday plans. In March one may read in the newspaper of the beauties of Cornwall, South Wales, the Lakes, the Derbyshire Dales, the Broads, the Highlands and the Border without any emotion but pleasure. The brooks that murmur as they run, through the pages of a descriptive magazine article, the stately fanes depicted in the woodcuts, and the delicious country inns, described 'A few practical hints to tourists in Cadwallader's country,' a place where the sheets smell of lavender, and where there is always Devonshire cream, home-made bread, and strawberry jam with whole strawberries in it on the sideboard, please us then.

Alas! for human perversity. When August comes the appetite for such things sickens and dies, and instead of these delights we think only of the 'nasty

crechias-crawl-uppias' that inhabit the feather bed in the country inn and of the discomfort of driving six miles in the rain in an open fly, too cross, too wet, and too tired to care whether it is 'Cadwallader's country' or only his maiden aunt's or younger brother's. In the abstract it is delightful to talk about cheap and yet really comfortable seaside places, and be comforted. When they are spoken of in the concrete in the third week in August it is a very different matter. Your wife, not being in business, is, of course, far more methodical, business-like, and logical than you are, and leads off the debate by laying down that what we want 'is a seaside place, not more than three or four hours from London, which shall not be overrun with tourists.'

'The lodging must not be in any horrid terrace or esplanade, but must stand by itself outside the town, and have a garden, if possible; and there ought to be good sands for the children, and there ought also to be golf-links for you, and cheap riding-horses, for it would be splendid for you to get your exercise in that way. The lodgings in a nice country place such as I mean ought, of course, to be cheap, and there should be nice old-fashioned country shops where you could get everything you wanted. Now, dear, I think I've said all the important things, and I leave it entirely to you to choose the exact place. I shall be quite happy wherever you like to take us, only don't forget that there are some seaside places where there is a horrid little sort of sandfly that bites one's legs, and would make it absolutely necessary to go away at once-so you won't go there Edward, will you, because I really could not stand it.'

Poor Edward! where is he to find this favoured spot