going very much about just now—­one of the maids in this house has a very bad cold—­I hope you will remember to bathe your feet And take some water gruel to night, and do everything that Dr. Redgill desires you, honest man!” If Mary absented herself for a day, her salutation was, “My dear Mary, what became of you yesterday?  I assure you I was quite miserable about you all day, thinking, which was quite natural, that something was the matter with you; and I declare I never closed my eyes all night for thinking about you.  I assure you if it had not been that I couldn’t leave Sir Sampson, I would have taken a hackney coach, although I know what impositions they are, and have gone to Beech Park to see what had come over you.”

Yet all this Mary bore with the patience of a martyr, to the admiration of Lady Maclaughlan and the amazement of Lady Emily, who declared she could only submit to be bored as long as she was amused.

On going to Milsom Street one morning Mary found her aunt in high delight at two invitations she had just received for herself and her niece.

“The one,” said she, “is to dinner at Mrs. Pullens’s.  You can’t remember her mother, Mrs. Macfuss, I daresay, Mary—­she was a most excellent woman, I assure you, and got all her daughters married.  And I remember Mrs. Pullens when she was Flora Macfuss; she was always thought very like her mother and Mr. Pullens is a most worthy man, and very rich and it was thought at the time a great marriage for Flora Macfuss, for she had no money of her own, but her mother was a very clever woman, and a most excellent manager; and I daresay so is Mrs. Pullens, for the Macfusses are all famous for their management—­so it will be a great thing for you, you know, Mary, to be acquainted with Mrs. Pullens.”

Mary was obliged to break in upon the eulogium on Mrs. Pullens by noticing the other card.  This was a subject for still greater gratulation.

“This,” said she, “is from Mrs. Bluemits, and it is for the same day with Mrs. Pullens, only it is to tea, not to dinner.  To be sure it will be a great pity to leave Mrs. Pullens so soon; but then it would be a great pity not to go to Mrs. Bluemits’s; for I’ve never seen her, and her aunt, Miss Shaw, would think it very odd if I was to go back to the Highlands without seeing Nancy Shaw, now Mrs. Bluemits; and at any rate I assure you we may think much of being asked, for she is a very clever woman, and makes it a point never to ask any but clever people to her house; so it’s a very great honour to be asked.”

It was an honour Mary would fain have dispensed with.  At another time she might have anticipated some amusement from such parties, but at present her heart was not tuned to the ridiculous, and she attempted to decline the invitations, and get her aunt to do the same; but she gave up the point when she saw how deeply Grizzy’s happiness for the time being was involved in these invitations, and she even consented to accompany her, conscious, as Lady Maclaughlan said, that the poor creature required a leading string, and was not fit to go alone.  The appointed day arrived, and Mary found herself in company with Aunt Grizzy at the mansion of Mr. Pullens, the fortunate husband of the ci-devant Miss Flora Macfuss; but as Grizzy is not the best of biographers, we must take the liberty of introducing this lady to the acquaintance of our reader.