As we drove up to our door, our virgin neighbours gazed on us, if possible, with more than their former interest.  They wiped their spectacles; with glances of commiseration they saw us alight, and with unwearied scrutiny they witnessed the removal of our luggage from the carriage.  We 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 people in Pumpington Wells; but you flatter the good, if you think that when I dipped my pen in praise, I limited my sketches to the virtuous of this place; and what is worse, you libel the bad if you assert that my sketches of vice were meant personally to apply to the vicious who reside here.”