heir day;
but now, thank the stars of the present day, irregularity and difformity
bear the bell, and have the majority.'

As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which Mrs.
Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that which nature
had given, she pointed out to my lord 'a happy moving termination,'
consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a fisherman leaning over the rails.
On a sudden, the fisherman was seen to tumble over the bridge into the
water.

The gentlemen ran to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard Mrs.
Raffarty bawling to his lordship, to beg he would never mind, and not
trouble himself.

When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from part
of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but when they
attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a stuffed figure which
had been pulled into the stream by a real fish, which had seized hold of
the bait.

Mrs. Raffarty, vexed by the fisherman's fall, and by the laughter
it occasioned, did not recover herself sufficiently to be happily
ridiculous during the remainder of the walk, nor till dinner was
announced, when she apologised for 'having changed the collation, at
first intended, into a dinner, which she hoped would be found no bad
substitute, and which she flattered herself might prevail on my lord and
the gentlemen to sleep, as there was no moon.'

The dinner had two great faults--profusion and pretension. There was,
in fact, ten times more on the table than was necessary; and the
entertainment was far above the circumstances of the person by whom it
was given; for instance, the dish of fish at the head of the table had
been brought across the island from Sligo, and had cost five guineas; as
the lady of the house failed not to make known. But, after all, things
were not of a piece; there was a disparity between the entertainment and
the attendants; there was no proportion or fitness of things--a painful
endeavour at what could not be attained, and a toiling in vain to
conceal and repair deficiencies and blunders. Had the mistress of the
house been quiet; had she, as Mrs. Broadhurst would say, but let things
alone, let things take their course, all would have passed off with
well-bred people; but she was incessantly apologising, and fussing,
and fretting inwardly and outwardly, and directing and calling to
her servants--striving to make a butler who was deaf, a boy who was
hare-brained, do the bu