she resolved on getting people to her house, and going to people's houses, whose names as yet were all she knew of them; and by dint of patience, perseverance and pushing, she had to a great degree succeeded. Is not Locke the great philosopher who says, the strokes of the pickaxe build the pyramid? But these social contracts were subservient to one great end—domestic economy. Mrs. Fergusson had a family of six daughters; and to get these well married was the hope and aim of her existence, "the ocean to the river" of her thoughts. By day she laid plans, by night dreamed they had succeeded. To this point tend dresses, dances, dinners; for this she drove in the park—for this waited out the ballet at the opera—for this Mr. St. Leger found his favourite pâté de cœur des tourterelles perfect at her table; for this Mr. Herbert, twice a week during last April, was asked to a family dinner—un dîné sans façons est une perfidie, though in a different sense to what the poet des plateaux intended; for this, on Mr. Hoggart, a Scotchman—who wore a blue coat, which he always began to button when economy was talked of—did mamma impress, what a treasure her Elizabeth was, and how well she supplied her place at home. [By the
