r. Furnival's blue nose on the other
side of the table every morning and evening as she sat over her
shrimps and tea.

Men who had risen in the world as Mr. Furnival had done do find it
sometimes difficult to dispose of their wives. It is not that the
ladies are in themselves more unfit for rising than their lords, or
that if occasion demanded they would not as readily adapt themselves
to new spheres. But they do not rise, and occasion does not demand
it. A man elevates his wife to his own rank, and when Mr. Brown,
on becoming solicitor-general, becomes Sir Jacob, Mrs. Brown also
becomes my lady. But the whole set among whom Brown must be more
or less thrown do not want her ladyship. On Brown's promotion she
did not become part of the bargain. Brown must henceforth have two
existences--a public and a private existence; and it will be well for
Lady Brown, and well also for Sir Jacob, if the latter be not allowed
to dwindle down to a minimum.

If Lady B. can raise herself also, if she can make her own
occasion--if she be handsome and can flirt, if she be impudent and
can force her way, if she have a daring mind and can commit great
expenditure, if she be clever and can make poetry, if she can in
any way create a separate glory for herself, then, indeed, Sir Jacob
with his blue nose may follow his own path, and all will be well.
Sir Jacob's blue nose seated opposite to her will not be her summum
bonum.

But worthy Mrs. Furnival--and she was worthy--had created for herself
no such separate glory, nor did she dream of creating it; and
therefore she had, as it were, no footing left to her. On this
occasion she had gone to Brighton, and had returned from it sulky
and wretched, bringing her daughter back to London at the period of
London's greatest desolation. Sophia had returned uncomplaining,
remembering that good things were in store for her. She had been
asked to spend her Christmas with the Staveleys at Noningsby--the
family of Judge Staveley, who lives near Alston, at a very pretty
country place so called. Mr. Furnival had been for many years
acquainted with Judge Staveley,--had known the judge when he was a
leading counsel; and now that Mr. Furnival was a rising man, and
now that he had a pretty daughter, it was natural that the young
Staveleys and Sophia Furnival should know each other. But poor Mrs.
Furnival was too ponderous for this mounting late in life, and she
had not been asked to Noningsby. She was much too