t abide to dress any young lady who says never mind, and it will
do very well. That, and her never talking to one confiDANtially, or
trusting one with the least bit of her secrets, is the thing I can't put
up with from Miss Nugent; and Miss Broadhurst holding the pins to me, as
much as to say, Do your business, Petito, and don't talk.--Now, that's
so impertinent, as if one wasn't the same flesh and blood, and had
not as good a right to talk of everything, and hear of everything, as
themselves. And Mrs. Broadhurst, too, cabinet-councilling with my
lady, and pursing up her city mouth when I come in, and turning off the
discourse to snuff, forsooth; as if I was an ignoramus, to think they
closeted themselves to talk of snuff. Now, I think a lady of quality's
woman has as good a right to be trusted with her lady's secrets as with
her jewels; and if my Lady Clonbrony was a real lady of quality, she'd
know that, and consider the one as much my paraphernalia as the other.
So I shall tell my lady to-night, as I always do when she vexes me,
that I never lived in an Irish family before, and don't know the ways of
it--then she'll tell me she was born in Hoxfordshire--then I shall say,
with my saucy look, "Oh, was you, my lady?--I always forget that you was
an Englishwoman:" then maybe she'll say, "Forget!--you forget yourself
strangely, Petito." Then I shall say, with a great deal of dignity,
"If your ladyship thinks so, my lady, I'd better go." And I'd desire no
better than that she would take me at my word; for my Lady Dashfort's is
a much better place, I'm told, and she's dying to have me, I know.'

And having formed this resolution, Petito concluded her apparently
interminable soliloquy, and went with my lord's gentleman into the
antechamber, to hear the concert, and give her judgment on everything;
as she peeped in through the vista of heads into the Apollo saloon--for
to-night the Alhambra was transformed into the Apollo saloon--she saw
that whilst the company, rank behind rank, in close semicircles, had
crowded round the performers to hear a favourite singer, Miss Broadhurst
and Lord Colambre were standing in the outer semicircle, talking to
one another earnestly. Now would Petito have given up her reversionary
chance of the three nearly new gowns she expected from Lady Clonbrony,
in case she stayed; or, in case she went, the reversionary chance of any
dress of Lady Dashfort's except her scarlet velvet, merely to hear what
M