of the preceding year; and her triumph was complete when any of them were so polite as to assert that they might have passed upon them for the fruits of the present season.  Another art in which she flattered herself she was unrivalled was that of making things pass for what they were not; thus, she gave pork for lamb—­common fowls for turkey poults—­currant wine for champagne—­whisky with peach leaves for noyau; but all these deceptions Mrs. Jekyll piqued herself immediately detecting, and never failed to point out the difference, and in the politest manner to hint her preference of the real over the spurious.  Many were the wonderful morsels with which poor Mr. Pullens was regaled, but he had now ceased to be surprised at anything that appeared on his own table; and he had so often heard the merit of his wife’s housekeeping extolled by herself that, contrary to his natural conviction, he now began to think it must be true; or if he had occasionally any little private misgivings when he thought of the good dinners he used to have in his bachelor days, he comforted himself by thinking that his lot was the lot of all married men who are blest with active, managing, economical wives.  Such were Mr. and Mrs. Pullens; and the appearance of the house offered no inadequate idea of the mistress.  The furniture was incongruous, and everything was ill-matched—­for Mrs. Pullens was a frequenter of sales, and, like many other liberal-minded ladies, never allowed a bargain to pass, whether she required the articles or not.  Her dress was the same; there was always something to wonder at; caps that had been bought for nothing, because they were a little soiled, but by being taken down and washed, and new trimmed, turned out to be just as good as new gowns that had been dyed, turned, cleaned, washed, etc.; and the great triumph was when nobody could tell the old breadth from the new.

The dinner was of course bad, the company stupid, and the conversation turned solely upon Mrs. Pullens’s exploits, with occasional attempts of Mrs. Jekyll to depreciate the merits of some of her discoveries.  At length the hour of departure arrived, to Mary’s great relief, as she thought any change must be for the better.  Not so Grizzy, who was charmed and confounded by all she had seen, and heard, and tasted, and all of whose preconceived ideas on the subjects of washing, preserving, etc., had sustained a total bouleversement, upon hearing of the superior methods practised by Mrs. Pullens.

“Well, certainly, Mary, you must allow Mrs. Pullens is an astonishing clever woman!  Indeed, I think nobody can dispute it—­only think of her never using a bit of soap in her house—­everything is washed by steam.  To be sure, as Mrs Jekyll said, the table linen was remarkably ill-coloured—­but no wonder, considering—­it must be a great saving, I’m sure—­and she always stands and sees it done herself, for there’s no trusting these things to servants.  Once when she trusted