not everyone that will make the sacrifices for their family I have done; but thank God!  I am richly repaid.  My children are everything I could wish them to be!’ Everything of hers, as a matter of course, must be superior to every other person’s, and even what she is obliged to share in common with others acquires some miraculous charm in operating upon her.  Thus it is impossible for anyone to imagine the delight she takes in bathing; and as for the sun, no mortal can conceive the effect it has upon her.  If she was to have the plague she would assure you it was owing to some peculiar virtue in her blood; and if she was to be put in the pillory she would ascribe it entirely to her great merit.  If her coachman were to make her a declaration of love she would impute it to the boundless influence of her charms; that every man who sees her does not declare his passion is entirely owing to the well-known severity of her morals and the dignity of her deportment.  If she is amongst the first invited to my ball, that will be my eagerness to secure her:  if the very last, it will be a mark of my friendship, and the easy footing we are upon.  If not invited at all, then it will be jealousy.  In short, the united strength of worlds would not shake that woman’s good opinion of herself; and the intolerable part of it is there are so many fools in this one that she actually passes with the multitude for being a charming sweet-tempered woman—­always the same—­always pleased and contented.  Contented! just as like contentment as the light emitted by putridity resembles the divine halo!  But too much of her.  Let her have a card, however.

“Then comes Mrs. Wiseacre, that renowned law-giver, who lavishes her advice on all who will receive it, without hope of fee or reward, except that of being thought wiser than anybody else.  But, like many more deserving characters, she meets with nothing but ingratitude in return; and the wise sentences that are for ever hovering around her pursed up mouth have only served to render her insupportable.  This is her mode of proceeding—­’ If I might presume to advise, Lady Emily;’ or, ’If my opinion could be supposed to have any weight;’ or ’If my experience goes for anything;’ or, ’I’m an old woman now, but I think I know something of the world;’ or, ’If a friendly hint of mine would be of any service:  —­then when very desperate, it is, ’However averse I am to obtrude my advice, yet as I consider it my duty, I must for once;’ or, ’It certainly is no affair of mine, at the same time I must just observe,’ etc. etc.  I don’t say that she insists, however, upon your swallowing all the advice she crams you with; for, provided she has the luxury of giving it, it can make little difference how it is taken; because whatever befals you, be it good or bad, it is equally a matter of exultation to her.  Thus she has the satisfaction of saying, ’If poor Mrs. Dabble had but followed my advice, and not have taken these pills of Dr. Doolittle’s, she would have been alive to-day, depend upon it;’ or, ’If Sir Thomas Speckle had but taken advantage of a friendly hint I threw out some time ago, about the purchase of the Drawrent estate, he might have been a man worth ten thousand a year at this moment;’ or, ’If Lady Dull hadn’t been so infatuated as to neglect the caution I gave her about Bob Squander, her daughter might have been married to Nabob Gull.’