“And every one laughed so!” cried another. “She came to see _me_ once, with a colored dress on, trimmed all over with broad white ruffles. Wasn’t that a costume? I wonder who _she_ is, to slight us! She would do better to recollect what she springs from. Indeed! the time was—”
But we have not time to repeat the angry sayings of Mrs. Jones’ friends. Some were told to her, but she cared not a _sous_, since the old set and the new would never meet to canvass her pedigree or her paper wreaths of yore. So, bidding a long farewell to them all, she left for New York, in all the glory of traveling-dresses, trunks labeled “John Johnson Jones,” and a white nurse for Master Pushaw.
“Are you going out this morning, Sara?” said Mr. Jones, as he saw an unusual quantity of finery on the dressing-table, embroidered collars, cuffs, handkerchiefs and gay ribbons.
“Yes; I have some calls to make—no very important ones to be sure; I intend dining out to Mrs. Hill’s place at Summerfield. But as I think it a duty to assist in putting down the pride of such people, I wish to go with some eeclaw, and will take Pushaw with me, to show off his handsome suit. Some of my friends told me it was folly in me to put myself to the trouble of calling, but I wish them to see how mistaken they were, poor things! when they took upon themselves to treat us with so much indifference when we were neighbors. The Hills are of no earthly use, everybody knows that! and I vow and declare that I saw Mrs. Hill wear that shine silk of hers two winters ago. I really must ask some of her acquaintances; it is worth while to ascertain it. I suppose I must go alone, for I could not ask any one to be charitable enough to go with me; and after this, I mean to cut the Seymour and Hill clique most decidedly.”
Mrs. Jones took breath, and laughed at her own wit as though she relished it; and well she might, for the idea of her being able to “cut people” was a very funny one to be sure.
“Hill is doing a bad business this winter,” said her husband, buttoning his coat, and straightening himself before the glass. “He’ll be ‘done up’ at the end of it, I’ll wager any thing, for he sold his beautiful horse a short time since, and a man must be in a poor way to part with such an animal as that is. Sinclair bought him, and hardly knows how to ride.”