kind not to be settled by reference
to the court calendar, or college of heraldry. It was therefore the
most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but
let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier
feuds, which take place on these "debatable lands" of gentility. The
most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life, was one that
occurred at a country town, on a question of precedence between the
ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of needles.

At the town where I was situated there were perpetual altercations of
the kind. The head manufacturer's lady, for instance, was at daggers
drawings with the head shopkeeper's, and both were too rich and had too
many friends to be treated lightly. The doctor's and lawyer's ladies
held their heads still higher; but they in their turn were kept in
check by the wife of a country banker, who kept her own carriage; while
a masculine widow of cracked character, and second-hand fashion, who
lived in a large house, and was in some way related to nobility, looked
down upon them all. She had been exiled from the great world, but here
she ruled absolute. To be sure her manners were not over-elegant, nor
her fortune over-large; but then, sir, her blood--oh, her blood carried
it all hollow, there was no withstanding a woman with such blood in her
veins.

After all, she had frequent battles for precedence at balls and
assemblies, with some of the sturdy dames of the neighborhood, who
stood upon their wealth and their reputations; but then she had two
dashing daughters, who dressed as fine as dragons, and had as high
blood as their mother, and seconded her in everything. So they carried
their point with high heads, and every body hated, abused, and stood in
awe of the Fantadlins.

Such was the state of the fashionable world in this self-important
little town. Unluckily I was not as well acquainted with its politics
as I should have been. I had found myself a stranger and in great
perplexities during my first season; I determined, therefore, to put
myself under the patronage of some powerful name, and thus to take the
field with the prejudices of the public in my favor. I cast round my
thoughts for the purpose, and in an evil hour they fell upon Mrs.
Fantadlin. No one seemed to me to have a more absolute sway in the
world of fashion. I had always noticed that her party slammed the box
door the loudest at the theatre; had most beaux atten