If you are not smart enough to drive a close bargain, they consider it only fair to take you in. A man loses very little in the public estimation by making over all his property to some convenient friend, in order to defraud his creditors, while he retains a competency for himself. Women whose husbands have been detained on the limits for years for debt, will give large parties and dress in the most expensive style. This would be thought dishonourable at home, but is considered no disgrace here. "Honour is all very well in an old country like England," said a lady, with whom I had been arguing on the subject; "but, Mrs. M---, it won't do in a new country like this. You may as well cheat as be cheated. For my part, I never lose an advantage by indulging in such foolish notions." I have no doubt that a person who entertained such principles would not fail to reduce them to practice. The idea that some country people form of an author is highly amusing. One of my boys was tauntingly told by another lad at school, "that his ma' said that Mrs. M--- invented lies, and got money for them." This was her estimation of works of mere fiction. Once I was driven by a young Irish friend to call upon the wife of a rich farmer in the country. We were shewn by the master of the house into a very handsomely furnished room, in which there was no lack of substantial comfort, and even of some elegancies, in the shape of books, pictures, and a piano. The good man left us to inform his wife of our arrival, and for some minutes we remained in solemn state, until the mistress of the house made her appearance. She had been called from the washtub, and, like a sensible woman, was not ashamed of her domestic occupation. She came in wiping the suds from her hands on her apron, and gave us a very hearty and friendly welcome. She was a short, stout, middle-aged woman, with a very pleasing countenance; and though only in her coloured flannel working-dress, with a nightcap on her head, and spectacled nose, there was something in her frank good-natured face that greatly prepossessed us in her favour. After giving us the common compliments of the day, she drew her chair just in front of me, and, resting her elbows on her knees, and dropping her chin between her hands, she sat regarding me with such a fixed gaze that it became very embarrassing. "So," says she, at last, "you are Mrs. M---?" "Yes." "The woman that writes?" "The same." She drew back her chair for a few paces, with a deep-drawn sigh, in which disappointment and surprise seemed strangely to mingle. "Well, I have he'rd a great deal about you, and I wanted to see you bad for a long time; but you are only a humly person like myself after all. Why I do think, if I had on my best gown and cap, I should look a great deal younger and better than you." I told her that I had no doubt of the fact. "And pray," continued she, with the same provoking scrutiny, "how old do you call yourself?"