“Oh, that will never do,” cried Mrs. Cole. “It is no use being a physician in those out-of-the-way places. He must be in Mayfair.”
“Must he?”
“Of course. Besides, then my Johnnie can call him in when they are just going to die. Johnnie is a general prac., and makes two thousand a year; and he shall call your one in; but he must live in Mayfair. Why, Rosie, you would not be such a goose as to live in those places—they are quite gone by.”
“I shall do whatever you advise me, dear. Oh, what a comfort to have a dear friend: and six months married, and knows things. How richly it is trimmed! Why, it is nearly all trimmings.”
“That is the fashion.”
“Oh!”
And after that big word there was no more to be said.
These two ladies in their conversation gravitated towards dress, and fell flat on it every half-minute. That great and elevating topic held them by a silken cord, but it allowed them to flutter upwards into other topics; and in those intervals, numerous though brief, the lady who had been married six months found time to instruct the matrimonial novice with great authority, and even a shade of pomposity. “My dear, the way ladies and gentlemen get a house—in the first place, you don't go about yourself like that, and you never go to the people themselves, or you are sure to be taken in, but to a respectable house-agent.”
“Yes, dear, that must be the best way, one would think.”
“Of course it is; and you ask for a house in Mayfair, and he shows you several, and recommends you the best, and sees you are not cheated.”