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and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go too;
how very imprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown’s con-
duct (wife of Brown of the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had
been with young Swankey of the Body Guard, sitting up
with him on deck until all hours, and losing themselves as
they were riding out at the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had
had out her thirteen sisters, daughters of a country curate,
the Rev: Felix Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven
high up in the service; how Hornby was wild because his
wife would stay in Europe, and Trotter was appointed Col-
lector at Ummerapoora. This and similar talk took place at
the grand dinners all round. They had the same conversa-
tion; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of mutton,
boiled turkeys, and entrees. Politics set in a short time after
dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about
their complaints and their children.
Mutato nomine, it is all the same. Don’t the barristers’
wives talk about Circuit? Don’t the soldiers’ ladies gossip
about the Regiment? Don’t the clergymen’s ladies discourse
about Sunday-schools and who takes whose duty? Don’t
the very greatest ladies of all talk about that small clique of
persons to whom they belong? And why should our Indian
friends not have their own conversation?—only I admit it
is slow for the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by
and listen.
Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driv-
ing about regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer
(wife of MajorGeneral Sir Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal
Army); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G. Huff, Bombay ditto; Mrs.

956 Vanity Fair