But to return to the mushroom gentry. While they are travelling the high-road to preferment and honour, their wives are proceeding with railway speed in the paths of affectation and conceit. From the more useful occupations of washing their own clothes, and mending their own stockings, they now play the part of “my lady,” and pass their time in lolling upon a sofa, with an open book before them, ready to take up should “company” arrive; or with wondering ears, listen to their daughters bungling through one of Mozart’s waltzes, or stammering over a French fable. Yet it is but proper to observe, all the “ladies” of this class of aristocrats do not spend their time in this indolent manner. No—far from it. Many of them have an eye to business amid all their grandeur, and keep, in a little tenement adapted to the purpose, a good stock of salt pork and salt fish; mackerels, herrings, and “alewives;”[55] corn-flour, tobacco, and candles; besides various articles of finery and coarse cloths, which they dispense to the negroes upon the neighbouring estates, at the very moderate profit of about 50 per cent.! Nor is this the sum-total of their industry; their yard is well supplied with poultry, their gardens with vegetables, if they lack flowers; and many a goodly-sized swine enriches their pigsties. When these last-mentioned quadrupeds have exchanged their Saxon for their Norman names, as “Wamba” observes, the lady of the house, on “notable thoughts intent,” packs up their delicate “sides and quarters,” and conveys them, or has them conveyed, to a snug corner of the carriage about to convey her honourable husband to the capital, to meet in “conclave grave” his noble compeers. After setting down their master at the door of the court-house, “Mr. John,” the coachman, or “Mr. Thomas,” the footman, draws these choice viands from their retreat; and while the owner of the defunct pigs is busy in making laws, or settling the affairs of nations, his servants are disposing of them to the best bidder, or laying in a store of bread in their stead. In the same manner, corn-fed mutton, poultry, eggs, and fresh butter, find their way to St. John’s market; and, by the magician-like wand of commerce, return to our manager’s managing lady, in the form of wine, tea, or loaf-sugar. Of course, when these “ladies of distinction” draw on their mitts, and make their appearance in the drawing-room, the _shop_ is banished from thoughts and conversation; and if not literature, at least topics of scandal, rank, and lineage, are discussed in its place. Some great-great-grandfather, who, from some freak of royalty has been dubbed knight, or else some imaginary kinsman, is called up from their long-forgotten tomb, to stand as a kind of foundation to their present greatness.