As to the matter
of business, I have no doubt but that he was of great use. He was
possessed of common sense and an honest purpose; and I am inclined to
think that they are often a sufficient counterpoise to a considerable
amount of worldly experience. If one could have the worldly
experience also--! True! but then it is so difficult to get
everything. But with that special matter of business we need not
have any further concern. We will presume it to have been discussed
and completed, and will now dress ourselves for Miss Dunstable's
conversazione. But it must not be supposed that she was so poor in
genius as to call her party openly by a name borrowed for the nonce
from Mrs. Proudie. It was only among her specially intimate friends,
Mrs. Harold Smith and some few dozen others, that she indulged in
this little joke. There had been nothing in the least pretentious
about the card with which she summoned her friends to her house on
this occasion. She had merely signified in some ordinary way, that
she would be glad to see them as soon after nine o'clock on Thursday
evening, the ---- instant, as might be convenient. But all the world
understood that all the world was to be gathered together at Miss
Dunstable's house on the night in question--that an effort was to be
made to bring together people of all classes, gods and giants, saints
and sinners, those rabid through the strength of their morality,
such as our dear friend Lady Lufton, and those who were rabid in the
opposite direction, such as Lady Hartletop, the Duke of Omnium, and
Mr.
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