y unconscious of her visitor.

"Get out, Miss Galindo!" she cried, addressing the duck. "Get out! O, I
ask your pardon," she continued, as if seeing the lady for the first
time. "It's only that weary duck will come in. Get out Miss Gal---" (to
the duck).

"And so you call it after, me, do you?" inquired her visitor.

"O, yes, ma'am; my master would have it so, for he said, sure enough the
unlucky bird was always poking herself where she was not wanted."

"Ha, ha! very good! And so your master is a wit, is he? Well! tell him
to come up and speak to me to-night about my parlour chimney, for there
is no one like him for chimney doctoring."

And the master went up, and was so won over by Miss Galindo's merry ways,
and sharp insight into the mysteries of his various kinds of business (he
was a mason, chimney-sweeper, and ratcatcher), that he came home and
abused his wife the next time she called the duck the name by which he
himself had christened her.

But odd as Miss Galindo was in general, she could be as well-bred a lady
as any one when she chose. And choose she always did when my Lady Ludlow
was by. Indeed, I don't know the man, woman, or child, that did not
instinctively turn out its best side to her ladyship. So she had no
notion of the qualities which, I am sure, made Mr. Horner think that Miss
Galindo would be most unmanageable as a clerk, and heartily wish that the
idea had never come into my lady's head. But there it was; and he had
annoyed her ladyship already more than he liked to-day, so he could not
directly contradict her, but only urge difficulties which he hoped might
prove insuperable. But every one of them Lady Ludlow knocked down.
Letters to copy? Doubtless. Miss Galindo could come up to the Hall; she
should have a room to herself; she wrote a beautiful hand; and writing
would save her eyesight. "Capability with regard to accounts?" My lady
would answer for that too; and for more than Mr. Horner seemed to think
it necessary to inquire about. Miss Galindo was by birth and breeding a
lady of the strictest honour, and would, if possible, forget the
substance of any letters that passed through her hands; at any rate, no
one would ever hear of them again from her. "Remuneration?" Oh! as for
that, Lady Ludlow would herself take care that it was managed in the most
delicate manner possible. She would send to invite Miss Galindo to tea
at the Hall that very afternoon, if Mr. Horner would