went out--every body stared at us--the people we _did_
know touched the hands we extended, and hastened on as if fearful of
infection; the people we _did not_ know whispered as they passed us,
and looked back afterwards; the men servants seemed full of mysterious
flurry when we left our cards at the doors of acquaintances, and the
maid-servants peeped at us up the areas; the shopkeepers came from their
counters to watch us down the streets--and all was whispering and
wonder.

I could not make it out; was it to see the authoress? No; I had been an
authoress when they last saw me. Was it the brilliant success of my new
work? It _could_ be nothing else.

My husband met a maiden lady, and bowed to her; she passed on without
deigning to notice him. I spoke to an insipid man who had always bored
me with his unprofitable intimacy, and he looked another way! The next
lady we noticed tossed her head, as if she longed to toss it _at_ us;
and the next man we met opened his eyes astonishingly wide, and said--

"Are _you_ here! Dear me! I was told you could not show your--I mean,
did not mean to return!"

There was evidently some mystery, and we determined to wait patiently
for its developement. "If," said I, "it bodes us _good_, time will
unravel it." "And if," said my husband, "it bodes us evil, some d--d
good-natured friend will tell us all about it."

We had friends at Pumpington Wells, and good ones too, but no friend
enlightened us; that task devolved upon an acquaintance, a little slim
elderly man, so frivolous and so garrulous, that he only wanted a
turban, some rouge, and a red satin gown, to become the most perfect of
old women.

He shook his head simultaneously as he shook our hands, and his little
grey eyes twinkled with delight, while he professed to feel for us both
the deepest commiseration.

"You are cut," said he; "its all up with you in Pumpington Wells."

"Pray be explicit," said I faintly, and dreading some cruel calumny, or
plot against my peace.

"You've done the most impolitic thing! the most hazardous"--

"Sir!" said my husband, grasping his cane.

"I lament it," said the little man, turning to me; "your book has done
it for you."

I thought of the reviews, and trembled.

"How _could_ you," continued our tormentor, "how could you put the
Pumpington Wells people in your novel?"

"The Pumpington Wells people!--Nonsense; there are good and bad people
in my novel, and there are good and bad peo