now that Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd? Do you think our
little girl here need be afraid? Is there any cause for fear, Isidor?
Hey, sir? Get some more beer."

Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid of any man alive,
let alone a Frenchman," and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink
which expressed her liking for the beverage.

Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words,
faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the Collector, had
lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now, especially
when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be. He was rather a
favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers with
sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs. And as there is one
well-known regiment of the army which travels with a goat heading the
column, whilst another is led by a deer, George said with respect to
his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an elephant.

Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to be rather
ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present
her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the
latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment
soon, and to get his wife away from those damned vulgar women. But
this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's society is much more common
among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be
sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person,
had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook
for delicacy on his own part. Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in
her hat, and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to
ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by
her fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these
ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave
excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the Major's
came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady's
eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company.

As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman of
middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more
instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major
O'Dowd. "Talk about kenal boats; my dear! Ye should see the kenal
boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. It's there th