My husband met a maiden lady, and bowed to her; she passed on without deigning to notice him. I spoke to an insipid man who had always bored me with his unprofitable intimacy, and he looked another way! The next lady we noticed tossed her head, as if she longed to toss it _at_ us; and the next man we met opened his eyes astonishingly wide, and said-- "Are _you_ here! Dear me! I was told you could not show your--I mean, did not mean to return!" There was evidently some mystery, and we determined to wait patiently for its developement. "If," said I, "it bodes us _good_, time will unravel it." "And if," said my husband, "it bodes us evil, some d--d good-natured friend will tell us all about it." We had friends at Pumpington Wells, and good ones too, but no friend enlightened us; that task devolved upon an acquaintance, a little slim elderly man, so frivolous and so garrulous, that he only wanted a turban, some rouge, and a red satin gown, to become the most perfect of old women. He shook his head simultaneously as he shook our hands, and his little grey eyes twinkled with delight, while he professed to feel for us both the deepest commiseration. "You are cut," said he; "its all up with you in Pumpington Wells." "Pray be explicit," said I faintly, and dreading some cruel calumny, or plot against my peace. "You've done the most impolitic thing! the most hazardous"-- "Sir!" said my husband, grasping his cane. "I lament it," said the little man, turning to me; "your book has done it for you." I thought of the reviews, and trembled. "How _could_ you," continued our tormentor, "how could you put the Pumpington Wells people in your novel?" "The Pumpington Wells people!--Nonsense; there are good and bad people in my novel, and there are good and bad people in Pumpington Wells; but you flatter the good, if you think that when I dipped my pen in praise, I limited my sketches to the virtuous of this place; and what is worse, _you_ libel the bad if you assert that my sketches of vice were meant personally to apply to the vicious who reside here." "_I_ libel--_I_ assert!" said the old lady-like little man; "not _I_!--every body says so!" "You may laugh," replied my mentor and tormentor combined, "but personality can be proved against you; and all the friends and relations of Mr. Flaw declare you meant the bad man of your book for him." "His friends and relations are too kind to him." "Then you have an irregular character in your book, and Mrs. Blemish's extensive circle of intimates assert that nothing can be more pointed than your allusion to _her_ conduct and _her_ character." "And pray what do these persons say about it themselves?" "They are outrageous, and go about the town absolutely wild." "Fitting the caps on themselves?"