or gone
to smoke. Let them go. A devilish malignity bequeathed them: let them go
back to their infernal origin. And when they were gone, his girl would
soon discover that there was no better place to come to than her home;
she would come without an asking, and alone, and without much prospect of
the intrusion of her infamous Hook-nose in pursuit of her at Earlsfont.
The money wasted, the wife would be at peace. Here she would have leisure
to repent of all the steps she had taken since that fatal one of the
acceptance of the invitation to the Embassy at Vienna. Mr. Adister had
warned her both against her going and against the influence of her friend
Lady Wenchester, our Ambassadress there, another Welsh woman, with the
weathervane head of her race. But the girl would accept, and it was not
for him to hold out. It appeared to be written that the Welsh,
particularly Welsh women, were destined to worry him up to the end of his
days. Their women were a composition of wind and fire. They had no
reason, nothing solid in their whole nature. Englishmen allied to them
had to learn that they were dealing with broomstick witches and
irresponsible sprites. Irishwomen were models of propriety beside them:
indeed Irishwomen might often be patterns to their English sisterhood.
Mr. Adister described the Cambrian ladies as a kind of daughters of the
Fata Morgana, only half human, and deceptive down to treachery, unless
you had them fast by their spinning fancy. They called it being romantic.
It was the ante-chamber of madness. Mad, was the word for them. You
pleased them you knew not how, and just as little did you know how you
displeased them. And you were long hence to be taught that in a certain
past year, and a certain month, and on a certain day of the month, not
forgetting the hour of the day to the minute of the hour, and attendant
circumstances to swear loud witness to it, you had mortally offended
them. And you receive your blow: you are sure to get it: the one passion
of those women is for vengeance. They taste a wound from the lightest
touch, and they nurse the venom for you. Possibly you may in their
presence have had occasion to praise the military virtues of the builder
of Carnarvon Castle. You are by and by pierced for it as hard as they can
thrust. Or you have incidentally compared Welsh mutton with
Southdown:--you have not highly esteemed their drunken Bards:--you have
asked what the Welsh have done in the world; you are s