More than a week passed in this manner; Mrs. Barnaby becoming every day more convinced that, although every sensible woman ought to marry a lord, if she can get one, yet, nevertheless, that an active, intelligent, obliging friend, full of admiration, and obedient to command, was an excellent substitute for everything else during an interregnum between the more violent attachments by which the career of all distinguished women must necessarily be marked. And Mr. Morrison, as he on his side remarked how freely the lady hired her flies and her hackney chariots,--how little she thought of the price of tickets for plays, operas, and that realization of all her dreams of elegant festivity, Vauxhall,--how liberally wine and even brandy flowed at the savoury little dinners in her drawing-room,--as he remarked on all this, he could not but reason with himself on the greatly superior felicity of being the husband of such a lady, and living without any trouble at all upon her fortune, to the remaining a bachelor in Red Lion Square, under the necessity of working whenever work could be had in order to pay his rent, settle his tailor's bill, and find wherewithal to furnish commons for himself and his one domestic. It is certain, however, that up to this time no serious idea of marrying Mr. Magnus Morrison had entered the widow's head; on the contrary, she was fully determined that, as soon as she had seen London "well," she would see Paris too, and was not without a vague notion that there might be something very elegant and desirable in becoming the wife of a French grandee. But these ruminations interfered not at all with the amiable amenity of her demeanour to her assiduous attendant.... Agnes was as little in their way as it was possible she could be ... the weather was remarkably fine ... and, on the whole, it may be doubted if any lady of thirty-seven ever made her first debut in the metropolis of the united kingdoms with more perfect satisfaction to herself.