It must be admitted, also, that this well-known enmity was occasionally played upon by the frolic-loving part of the community, both high and low; so that over and above the genuine mistakes, which were of themselves quite enough to keep the poor ladies in hot water, every now and then some little hoax was got up and practiced upon them, such as fictitious love-letters, anonymous communications, and so forth. It might have been imagined, as they were not answerable for their names, and as they were mutual sufferers by the similarity--one having as much right to complain of this freak of fortune as the other, that they might have entered into a compact of forbearance, which would have been equally advantageous to either party; but their naturally acrimonious dispositions prevented this, and each continued as angry with the other as she could have been if she had a sole and indefeasible right to the appellation of _C. Smith_, and her rival had usurped it in a pure spirit of annoyance and opposition. To be quite just, however, we must observe that Miss Cecilia was much the worse of the two; by judicious management Miss Charlotte might have been tamed, but the malice of Miss Cecilia was altogether inexorable. By the passing of the Reform Bill, the little town wherein dwelt these belligerent powers received a very considerable accession of importance; it was elevated into a borough, and had a whole live member to itself, which, with infinite pride and gratification, it sent to parliament, after having extracted from him all manner of pledges, and loaded him with all manner of instructions as to how he should conduct himself under every conceivable circumstance; not to mention a variety of bills for the improvement of the roads and markets, the erection of a town-hall, and the reform of the systems of watching, paving, lighting, &c., the important and consequential little town of B----.