Mallow? She had flirted with all the marriageable officers whom the
depots of her country afforded, and all the bachelor squires who seemed
eligible. She had been engaged to be married a half-score times in
Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath who used her so ill. She had
flirted all the way to Madras with the Captain and chief mate of the
Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season at the Presidency with her
brother and Mrs. O'Dowd, who was staying there, while the Major of the
regiment was in command at the station. Everybody admired her there;
everybody danced with her; but no one proposed who was worth the
marrying--one or two exceedingly young subalterns sighed after her, and
a beardless civilian or two, but she rejected these as beneath her
pretensions--and other and younger virgins than Glorvina were married
before her. There are women, and handsome women too, who have this
fortune in life. They fall in love with the utmost generosity; they
ride and walk with half the Army-list, though they draw near to forty,
and yet the Misses O'Grady are the Misses O'Grady still: Glorvina
persisted that but for Lady O'Dowd's unlucky quarrel with the Judge's
lady, she would have made a good match at Madras, where old Mr.
Chutney, who was at the head of the civil service (and who afterwards
married Miss Dolby, a young lady only thirteen years of age who had
just arrived from school in Europe), was just at the point of proposing
to her.

Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a great number of
times every day, and upon almost every conceivable subject--indeed, if
Mick O'Dowd had not possessed the temper of an angel two such women
constantly about his ears would have driven him out of his senses--yet
they agreed between themselves on this point, that Glorvina should
marry Major Dobbin, and were determined that the Major should have no
rest until the arrangement was brought about. Undismayed by forty or
fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to him. She sang Irish
melodies at him unceasingly. She asked him so frequently and
pathetically, Will ye come to the bower? that it is a wonder how any
man of feeling could have resisted the invitation. She was never tired
of inquiring, if Sorrow had his young days faded, and was ready to
listen and weep like Desdemona at the stories of his dangers and his
campaigns. It has been said that our honest and dear old friend used
to perform on the flute in private; Glorvin