shion. One fine day Lady Tweedledum's pretended zeal for music
receives its crowning reward. The noise of it reaches august ears. An
act of gracious condescension follows. Her Ladyship has the supreme
delight of leading a scion of Royalty to a chair of state in her
drawing-room, to hear Sir Raucisonous bleat and Miss Quaver trill.

There are subtler means of pushing than amateur concerts and private
theatricals. There is the push vertical, as in the case of the
commercial lady; and there is also the push lateral. A good example of
the latter style of operation is afforded by the dowager who is
fortunate enough to have an eldest son to use as a pushing machine.
Handled with tact, a young heir, not yet cut adrift from the maternal
apron-string, may be turned to excellent account. There is, or was, a
sentimental ballad entitled, "I'll kiss him for his mother." One might
reverse the sentiment in the case of _Madame Mere_. Of her the dowagers
with daughters to marry sing in chorus, "I'll visit her for her son."
Civility to the mother is access to the son. A sharp tactician sees her
advantage, and works the precious relationship for her own private ends.
It is a mine of invitations of an eligible kind. By aid of it she
springs over barriers which it would otherwise take her years to
surmount, and is lifted into circles which by their unassisted efforts
she and her daughters would never reach. Scheming dowagers are glad to
have her at their balls when there is a chance of young Hopeful
following in her train, and her five o'clock tea is delightful when
there is a young millionaire to sip it with. Deprived of her decoy duck
she would soon lose ground, and be left to push her way in society with
uncomfortably reduced momentum.

Another capital instrument for pushing is a country-house. The mistress
of a fine old hall and a cypher of a husband is apt to take a peculiar
view of the duties of property. One might expect her to be content with
so dignified and enviable a lot, and to pass tranquil days in coddling
the cottagers, patronizing the rector's wife, and impressing her
crotchet on the national school. But no--she is bitten with the
tarantula of social success. She wants to "get on" in society. She must
push as vigorously as any trumpery adventuress in May Fair. A good old
name is dragged into the dirt inseparable from pushing. The family
portraits look disdainfully from their frames, and the ancestral oaks
hang their heads i