, and to be sure, it was a great
sight. Two hundred and fifty souls, where there was not good room for the
odd fifty; such laughing, such squeezing, such pressing of hands and waists
in the staircase, and then such a row and riot at the top,--four fiddles, a
key bugle, and a bagpipe, playing 'Haste to the wedding,' amidst the crash
of refreshment-trays, the tramp of feet, and the sounds of merriment on all
sides!

"It's only in Ireland, after all, people have fun. Old and young, merry and
morose, the gay and cross-grained, are crammed into a lively country-dance;
and ill-matched, ill-suited, go jigging away together to the blast of a bad
band, till their heads, half turned by the noise, the heat, the novelty,
and the hubbub, they all get as tipsy as if they were really deep in
liquor.

"Then there is that particularly free-and-easy tone in every one about.
Here go a couple capering daintily out of the ball-room to take a little
fresh air on the stairs, where every step has its own separate flirtation
party; there, a riotous old gentleman, with a boarding-school girl for
his partner, has plunged smack into a party at loo, upsetting cards and
counters, and drawing down curses innumerable. Here are a merry knot round
the refreshments, and well they may be; for the negus is strong punch,
and the biscuit is tipsy cake,--and all this with a running fire of good
stories, jokes, and witticisms on all sides, in the laughter for which even
the droll-looking servants join as heartily as the rest.

"We were not long in finding out Mrs. Rogers, who sat in the middle of a
very high sofa, with her feet just touching the floor. She was short,
fat, wore her hair in a crop, had a species of shining yellow skin, and a
turned-up nose, all of which were by no means prepossessing. Shaugh and
myself were too hard-up to be particular, and so we invited her to dance
alternately for two consecutive hours, plying her assiduously with negus
during the lulls in the music.

"Supper was at last announced, and enabled us to recruit for new efforts;
and so after an awful consumption of fowl, pigeon-pie, ham, and brandy
cherries, Mrs. Rogers brightened up considerably, and professed her
willingness to join the dancers. As for us, partly from exhaustion, partly
to stimulate our energies, and in some degree to drown reflection, we drank
deep, and when we reached the drawing-room, not only the agreeable guests
themselves, but even the furniture, the ven