"Certainly, ma'am;" said Mrs. Button, turning the handle of a large enclosure; "the Admiral, and yourself, can have her ladyship's pew, this morning, and this evening too, if you come again. Her ladyship has fifteen pews, in the fifteen parishes she owns, and she takes them all in turn; and it won't be our turn, for ten Sundays yet." CHAPTER XI. LARGE IDEAS. Perhaps it was lucky for me, that my mother had failed to amaze Lady Twentifold, with the elegance of her apparel. But after having taken all that trouble, and lost all her comfort of the morning, she felt it no less than a personal slight, that her ladyship should have disgraced herself so, by neglecting divine worship. "But she went to some other church," said father. "I don't believe a word of it," answered mother, with both hands on her prayer-book; "she spent her whole morning in bed, no doubt. I never could endure those slothful ways; and the less we have to do with such people, the better." "Why, who ever dreamed of our having anything to do with them?" My father was astonished at any new idea always. "Sophy, I won't have this rubbish any more. I came down here, to enjoy myself, and live well, and improve my liver; as well as to bilk the vile harpies of the law, and find out Billy Barlow's tricks. But if I'm to put out my pipe, and smoke wet rolls (like Tom's taffy-sucks), and never be seen in my shirt-sleeves, and never get a smell of hot meat, till the bats are about, and be cut short of my d--ns indoors, and backed up in them out of doors,--why the world will have come to such a stuck-up pitch, as would soon turn me into a Radical." My mother said less, but pondered more. In bygone days, she had seemed content with the place in which she found herself, proud of the works, and the sample-boxes, and our renown for quality; and insisting upon it, that we should be styled in all transactions "Upmore & Co." But lately, or indeed for a long time now, her mind had been taking an elevated tone, which lowered the quality of our victuals. She talked a great deal more of honour, and much less of honesty; she began to look down upon the Sunday papers; and she would not let her friends say "Ma'am" to her. My father declared, that this disease began with my going to the _Partheneion_, and was made much worse by Mrs. Windsor, and the four professors, and was now turned into a pestilence, by these bathing-machines, and the sailors at the church, and the brass-horn rogues coming round with the cap, and "my lady, if you please," upon the sands.