Byron has introduced."

"Oh, he's a fine _pote_ certainly, but he's not moral, sir; and I'm
afeard to let my daughter read such combustibles."

"But he's grand," said Reddy; "for instance--

'She walks in beauty like the night.'

How fine!"

"But how wicked!" said Mrs. Riley. "I don't like that night-walking
style of poetry at all, so say no more about it; we'll talk of something
else. You admire music, I'm sure."

"I adore it, ma'am."

"Do you like the piano?"

"Oh, ma'am! I could live under a piano."

"My daughter plays the piano beautiful."

"Charmingly."

"Oh, but if you heerd her play the harp, you'd think she wouldn't lave
a sthring on it" (this was Mrs. Riley's favourite bit of praise); "and
a beautiful harp it is, one of Egan's double action, all over goold,
and cost eighty guineas; Miss Cheese chuse it for her. Do you know Miss
Cheese? she's as plump as a partridge, with a voice like a lark; she
sings elegant duets. Do you ever sing duets?"

"Not often."

"Ah! if you could hear Pether Dowling sing duets with my daughter! he'd
make the hair stand straight on your head with the delight. Oh, he's a
powerful singer! you never heerd the like; he runs up and down as fast
as a lamplighter;--and the beautiful turns he gives; oh! I never heerd
any one sing a second like Pether. I declare he sings a _second_ to that
degree _that you'd think it was the first_, and never at a loss for a
shake; and then off he goes in a run that you'd think he'd never come
back; but he _does_ bring it back into the tune again with as nate a fit
as a Limerick glove. Oh! I never heerd a singer like Pether!!!"

There is no knowing how much more Mrs. Riley would have said about
"Pether," if the end of the dance had not cut her eloquence short by
permitting the groups of dancers, as they promenaded, to throw in their
desultory discourse right and left, and so break up anything like a
consecutive conversation.

But let it not be supposed that all Mrs. Flanagan's guests were of the
Gubbins and Riley stamp. There were some of the better class of the
country people present; intelligence and courtesy in the one sex, and
gentleness and natural grace in the other, making a society not to be
ridiculed in the mass, though individual instances of folly and
ignorance and purse-proud effrontery were amongst it.

But to Growling every phase of society afforded gratification; and
while no one had a keener relish for such scenes as th