of
laughter ring from female lungs than hers as I rode forward. Seated in
the back of the carriage, the front cushion of which served as a kind of
table, sat the lady in question. One hand, resting upon her knee, held
a formidable carving-fork, on the summit of which vibrated the short leg
of a chicken; in the other she grasped a silver vessel, which, were I
to predicate from the froth, I fear I should pronounce to be porter. A
luncheon on the most liberal scale, displayed, in all the confusion
and disorder inseparable from such a situation, a veal-pie, cold lamb,
tongue, chickens, and sandwiches; drinking vessels of every shape and
material; a smelling bottle full of mustard, and a newspaper paragraph
full of salt. Abundant as were the viands, the guests were not wanting:
crowds of infantry officers, flushed with victory or undismayed by
defeat, hob-nobbed from the rumble to the box; the steps, the springs,
the very splinter-bar had its occupant; and, truly, a merrier party, or
a more convivial, it were difficult to conceive.

So environed was Mrs. Rooney by her friends, that I was enabled to
observe them some time, myself unseen.

"Captain Mitchell, another wing? Well, the least taste in life of the
breast? Bob Dwyer, will ye never have done drawing that cork?"

Now this I must aver was an unjust reproach, inasmuch as to my own
certain knowledge he had accomplished three feats of that nature in
about as many minutes; and, had the aforesaid Bob been reared from his
infancy in drawing corks, instead of declarations, his practice could
not have been more expert. Pop, pop, they went; ghig, glug, glug, flowed
the bubbling liquor, as sherry, shrub, cold punch, and bottled porter
succeeded each other in rapid order. Simpering ensigns, with elevated
eyebrows, insinuated nonsense, soft, vapid, and unmeaning as their own
brains, as they helped themselves to ham or dived into the pasty; while
a young dragoon, who seemed to devote his attention to Mrs. Rodney's
companion, amused himself by constant endeavours to stroke down a
growing moustache, whose downy whiteness resembled nothing that I know
of save the ill-omened fur one sees on an antiquated apple-pie.

As I looked on every side to catch a glance at him whom I should suppose
to Mr. Rooney, I was myself detected by the watchful eye of Bob Dwyer,
who, at that moment having his mouth full of three hard eggs, was nearly
asphyxiated in his endeavours to telegraph my approach