I acknowledge Thy mercy and goodness in permitting that for the moderate cost of Two Thousand Pounds and upwards,--a sum not greatly in excess of my dressmaker’s annual bill,--I may set my foot on the two dumb and prostrate Letters of the Alphabet now attached to my said Husband’s new calling and Election, and may mount thereon to those heights of County Society where, ever since I was born I have eagerly thirsted to be! For though County Society be often duller than the fabled Styx, nevertheless the leaden weight of its Approval is as necessary to my special comfort and welfare as the Gilded chain of Office is to the swelling chest of a Provincial Mayor. Thou knowest, O little Lord of Communities Narrow, Parochial and Politic, that I am called, even by the Profanest of Press-Reporters, “a fine figure of a woman,” and that I am deserving of Public Notice and Commendation, not only for my Physical Attractions, but for my Social Qualifications, which, despite the fact that Fate has wedded me to a Fool, have enabled me to successfully represent the said Fool to his bovine Electors as an Intelligent Personality! Great is the Tact which is needed to palm off a Sparrow for an Eagle, a Mouse for an Elephant, or a Donkey for a Statesman! But I swear to Thee, O Thou gracious Little Neptune who ruleth that Limited Ocean called the “Society Swim” that I am equal to all this and more! Thou seest me as I am, a Fashionable Feminine Insincerity! Thou beholdest the subtle cleverness of my Social Smile, which radiates sweetly upon the faces of such persons as I conceive may be useful in Election times, but which fades into a Supercilious Sneer when I discover, as I often do, that many of these persons are unblushingly “of no political party,” and have no interest whatever in keeping my Husband in His Seat! Now if my Husband were not in His Seat, I should become that most deplorable of human beings, a Provincial Nonentity! Hence arises my natural and lawful Desire that in His Seat my Husband shall remain, inasmuch as were he left without a Seat, I should be left without a “Set”!