of money. All its distinctions have their price. It exacts
from the pushing woman a thumping entrance-fee in the shape of a
sumptuous concert or ball. Nor is it only the first push which costs.
Every subsequent advance is as much a matter of purchase as a step in
the army.

There is a tariff of its honors, and any Belgravian actuary can
calculate to a nicety the price of a stare from a great lady, or a card
from a leader of fashion. This is the philosophy expounded by the
amphibious dandy to his civic pupil. The upshot is, that she must give
an entertainment, or a series of entertainments, on a scale of great
splendor. Of course the house in Bloomsbury must be exchanged for
another in a fashionable quarter. A more profuse style of living must be
adopted. Her equipages must be gorgeous, her flunkeys numerous and well
powdered. Above all, she must at once and for ever make a clean sweep of
all her old friends. Upon these conditions, and in consideration of a
_douceur_ for himself, he agrees to be her friend, and help her to push.
Then follows a delicate negotiation with one of those dowagers who
rather pique themselves on their good nature in standing sponsors to
pushing nobodies. She, too, makes her conditions. For the sake of the
elderly pet to whom she is indebted for her daily supply of scandal, she
consents to countenance his _protegee_. But she declines to ask her to
her own house. She will dine with her, provided the dinner is exquisite,
and two or three of her own cronies are included in the invitation. Last
and crowning condescension, she will ask the company for the proposed
concert or ball, provided the thing is done regardless of expense. It
would be hard to say which a cynic would think most charming--the
readiness to accept, or the inclination to impose, such conditions.

At last the great occasion arrives. Planted at the top of her staircase,
under the wing of her fashionable allies, the nominal giver of the
entertainment is duly stared at and glared at by a supercilious crowd,
who examine her with the same sort of languid interest which they devote
to a new animal at the Zoological. The greater number are "going on" to
another party. But the next morning brings balm for every mortification.
Her ball is blazoned in the fashionable journals, and the well-bred
reporter, while elaborately complimentary to the exotics, is discreetly
silent as to the supercilious stares. She does not exactly awake to find
hers