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 the skin, but this is a vagary of fashion of no practical moment.

Baths of milk merit more serious attention. They date back into ancient times, and many a high-born dame of Borne and Athens practised her ablutions in this nourishing fluid. It was supposed to give the skin a peculiar softness and freshness, unequalled by any other application. This may be true, for Madame de Genlis relates in her Memoirs that on one occasion the fancy took her to try this experiment. She sent to the neighboring farm-houses, bought up some fifty or sixty gallons, and took a royal bath. She describes her sensations for hours after as most pleasant and exhilarating.

Another lady of her day, the Princess Borghese, afterwards Queen of Naples, was said to indulge regularly in a milk-bath. So essential did she deem it to her comfort, or else to her good looks, that she denied herself a visit to the Court of St. James, simply because she heard that in England she must forego her luxurious habit.

The custom is not yet extinct in Paris. We were told when there that a number of fashionable ladies continue it. Knowing that milk sold at fifteen sous a litre, or thereabout, we remarked that it must be an expensive indulgence.

"Not very," replied our informant, with the utmost coolness, "the milk is afterwards bought up by the