creature in her first season,
and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I
don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout.
Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon."

'"You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you,
who come out of the parish," says I, "and whose grandfather, honest man,
kept cows there."

'"Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?"

'"Twenty guineas is sufficient," says I, and she paid them; so I said,
"Blanche may come, but not you, mind:" and she left me with a world of
thanks.

'Would you believe it?--when my ball came, the horrid woman made her
appearance with her daughter!

"Didn't I tell you not to come?" said I, in a mighty passion. "What
would the world have said?" cries my Lady Muggins: "my carriage is gone
for Sir Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady
Clapperclaw."

'"Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your supper," I
answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word more to her all night.

'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and
speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all
my kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s
cowboy's granddaughter, has done?--she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, and
hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince
George is to be there.'

Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute and active
De Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility
may be traced by the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made,
and cut, and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite
reputation that she has won it: pitilessly kicking down the ladder as
she advanced degree by degree.

Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father dine in the
steward's room, to his perfect contentment: and would send Sir Alured
thither like-wise but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her
future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her daughter's fortunes.
He is meek and content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used
to it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes
from the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to the 'Union.' He
is a dead hand at piquet, and loses a very comfortable maintenance to
some young fellows, at whist, at the '