Fortune particularly distinguished Mr. Jones and saved him the trial of an impossibility—the one of distinguishing himself. She gave him the key to every door when she made him wealthy, and in pure gratitude he converted his soul into a cent, and his heart into hard specie. Then, Fortune bestowed on him the would-be-elegant Miss Pushaw, as high-born as himself; and he was certainly a happy man when he stood up with a bride whose dress was, like Margaret Overreach’s, “sprinkled o’er with gold.” He was soon dazzled by her manœuvering qualities, and touched by the congeniality of feeling which existed between them. An adoration of fine clothes, fine furniture, and fashionable people, was the sacred link that bound these loving hearts into one; and upon their removal from the country to the city, no marble-cutter labored harder, or struck more small pieces right and left, than did Mr. and Mrs. John Johnson Jones, when they fawned and flattered, and ran small errands for the neighbors that surrounded them, “the great Athenians.” Mrs. Jones kept a small confectionary establishment in her pantry, for all the ladies who fell sick; and Mr. Jones was kind enough to open a cigar and drinking establishment for the gentlemen who were obliging enough to call. They progressed, however, slowly in the affections of the proud ——ians, and were somewhat discouraged, but recollecting the pretty motto of “Hope on, hope ever,” they did not despair, and contemplated taking larger strides toward gentility. Mrs. Jones had been originally called Sally, but changed the appellation for the softer one of Sara. Spring came on, and she resolved to follow the world of fashion to one of its favorite resorts, the little village of Quiproquo. She persuaded her loving spouse to rent one of its cottages; and covering some old sofas and chairs with new chintz, furnished it nicely and neatly enough to have satisfied the most fastidious. But to every visiter the same apology was made for its plainness; and Mrs. Jones informed them all that “her house in town was furnished _elegunt_, but she didn’t like to bring out her mahogany cheers,” while her husband’s invariable rejoinder was, “Why, Sara, there are plenty more where them came from!” A mere playful allusion to the amount of his fortune, a fact he never lost sight of, and in time it had its due effect on his listeners. This house became at length the _pied-à-terre_ for all the high-bred loungers that had nothing to do but smoke, drink, and play Boston in the summer months; the season of inevitable idleness for all Southerners of all professions—doctors excepted. Mrs. Jones talked very loud and very much _du nez_; she took all the empty speeches she listened to for witticisms, and was forever busy in the service of others, running about shaking a little basket of keys, to impress them with a due sense of her importance.