Three or four families are in the practice of having weekly evening card parties, as was usual in Lisbon. I attended these occasionally, but in them there was no peculiarity of customs. The foregoing pages will, I think, suffice to point out the kind of society to be met with in Pernambuco, but this must be sought for, as the families in which it is to be found, are not numerous. Of these, very few are in trade; they are either Portugueze families, of which the chief is in office, or Brazilian planters who are wealthy, and prefer residing in Recife or Olinda; or, as is frequently the case, a son or brother belonging to the secular priesthood, has imbibed more liberal notions, and has acquired a zest for rational society. As may naturally be supposed, the females of a family are always glad to be of more importance, to be treated with respect, to see, and to be seen. The merchants, generally speaking, for there do exist some exceptions, live very much alone; they have been originally from Portugal, have made fortunes in trade, and have married in the country; but most of them still continue to live as if they were not yet sufficiently wealthy, or at least cannot persuade themselves to alter their close and retired manner of living, and, excepting in the summer months, when sitting upon the steps of their country residencies, their families are not to be seen. The gentleman, chiefly by whose kindness I had been introduced and enabled to partake of the pleasantest society of Pernambuco, was among the first British subjects, who availed themselves of the free communication between England and Brazil, and he even already observed a considerable change of manners in the higher class of people. The decrease in the price of all articles of dress; the facility of obtaining at a low rate, earthenware, cutlery, and table linen; in fact, the very spur given to the mind by this appearance of a new people among them; the hope of a better state of things, that their country was about to become of more importance; renewed in many persons, ideas which had long lain dormant; made them wish to show, that they had money to expend, and that they knew how it should be expended.[16]