en, what do you think, but a set of them, as they
were bragging to me, turned out of a boarding-house at Cheltenham, last
year, because they had not peach-pies to their lunch!--But here they
come! shawls, and veils, and all!--streamers flying! But mum is my
cue!--Captain, are these girths to your fancy now?' said the landlord,
aloud; then, as he stooped to alter a buckle, he said, in a voice
meant to be heard only by Captain Bowles, 'If there's a tongue, male
or female, in the three kingdoms, it's in that foremost woman, Mrs.
Petito.'

'Mrs. Petito!' repeated Lord Colambre, as the name caught his ear; and,
approaching the barouche in which the five abigails were now seated, he
saw the identical Mrs. Petito, who, when he left London, had been in his
mother's service.

She recognised his lordship with very gracious intimacy; and, before
he had time to ask any questions, she answered all she conceived he
was going to ask, and with a volubility which justified the landlord's
eulogium of her tongue.

'Yes, my lord! I left my Lady Clonbrony some time back--the day after
you left town; and both her ladyship and Miss Nugent was charmingly, and
would have sent their loves to your lordship, I'm sure, if they'd any
notion I should have met you, my lord, so soon. And I was very sorry to
part with them; but the fact was, my lord,' said Mrs. Petito, laying
a detaining hand upon Lord Colambre's whip, one end of which he
unwittingly trusted within her reach,--'I and my lady had a little
difference, which the best friends, you know, sometimes have; so my Lady
Clonbrony was so condescending to give me up to my Lady Dashfort--and
I knew no more than the child unborn that her ladyship had it in
contemplation to cross the seas. But, to oblige my lady, and as Colonel
Heathcock, with his regiment of militia, was coming for purtection in
the packet at the same time, and we to have the government-yacht, I
waived my objections to Ireland. And, indeed, though I was greatly
frighted at first, having heard all we've heard, you know, my lord, from
Lady Clonbrony, of there being no living in Ireland, and expecting to
see no trees nor accommodation, nor anything but bogs all along; yet
I declare, I was very agreeably surprised; for, as far as I've seen at
Dublin and in the vicinity, the accommodations, and everything of that
nature, now is vastly put-up-able with!'--'My lord,' said Sir James
Brooke, 'we shall be late.' Lord Colambre, shortly withdr