The things we do!

So she went on, respected by all her friends, by
all her tradesmen, by herself not a little, talking of her previous
"misfortunes" with amusing equanimity; as if her father's parsonage-house
had been a palace of splendour, and the one-horse chaise (with the lamps
for evenings) from which she had descended, a noble equipage. "But I know
it is for the best, Clive," she would say to her nephew in describing
those grandeurs, "and, thank heaven, can be resigned in that station in
life to which it has pleased God to call me."
The good lady was called the Duchess by her fellow-tradesfolk in the
square in which she lived. (I don't know what would have come to her
had she been told she was a tradeswoman!) Her butchers, bakers, and
market-people paid her as much respect as though she had been a grandee's
housekeeper out of Kemp Town. Knowing her station, she yet was kind to
those inferior beings. She held affable conversations with them, she
patronised Mr. Rogers, who was said to be worth a hundred thousand--
two-hundred-thousand pounds (or lbs.


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