Directly opposite Mrs. Smith lived Mrs. Vivian Grey, the leader of the aristocracy (so Mrs. Hunter informed her) in St. John’s Square. It was a great thing to be noticed by Mrs. Vivian Grey. Mrs. Hunter sincerely hoped she would patronise Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Hunter, after a minute survey, pronounced Mrs. Smith’s establishment quite _comme il faut_, but suggested that a _real_ cachemire should be added as soon as possible to Mrs. Smith’s wardrobe, as Mrs. Grey considered that article quite indispensable to a woman of fashion. She also suggested that Mrs. Smith should delicately hint to her husband the propriety of his engaging a man servant, which appendage was necessary to give a certain _distingué_ finish to the establishment; an Irishman would do, if well trained, but a _black_ man was more fashionable, provided he was not _green_--and Mrs. Hunter smiled at her own wit. The cachemire was added--so was the black servant-man. Katy no longer skipped and jumped, but minced in corsets and whalebone. She never _ate_ unless at a private lunch with mamma. Mr. John Smith staid late at his counting-room, and looked anxious, and two ugly lines made their appearance on Mrs. Mary’s fair forehead. The French cook gave away provisions enough to feed an entire family of French emigrants. The black man-servant pulled up his dicky and informed Mrs. Smith that it was at the price of his reputation to live with a family who dispensed with the use of finger bowls, and the house-maid (who had the honor of being descended from the establishment of Mrs. Vivian Grey) declined remaining with a family who didn’t keep a private carriage. Mrs. Vivian Grey was _not_ baited by the real cachemire, and her son, little Julius Grey, a precocious youth of ten, told little George Smith that his mamma had forbidden him playing marbles with a boy whose father had kept a provision store. A scurrilous penny paper published a burlesque of Mrs. Smith’s first grand party, on the coming out of Miss Katy, in which, among other allusions to Mr. Smith’s former occupation, the ball-room was said to be “elegantly festooned with sausages.” This added “the last ounce to the camel’s back;” even Mrs. Hunter’s tried friendship was not proof against such a test. A council of war was called. Mrs. Smith begged her husband, as her repentant arms encircled his dicky, to buy a place in the country. John very gladly consented to turn his plebeian back forever on the scene of their humiliation; and what with strawberries and cherries, peaches, pic-nics, early rising and light hearts, the Smith family have once more recovered their equanimity, and can afford to laugh when “St. John’s Square” and Mrs. John Hunter are mentioned. WINTER IS COMING.