ladies; and then out with their watches, and “Isn’t it time to lunch?” So there they have been lunching within on what they brought with them; for nothing in our house could they touch, of course!  They brought themselves a PICKNICK lunch, with Madeira and Champagne to wash it down.  Why, gentlemen, what do you think, but a set of them, as they were bragging to me, turned out of a boarding-house at Cheltenham, last year, because they had not peach-pies to their lunch!—­But here they come! shawls, and veils, and all!—­streamers flying!  But mum is my cue!—­Captain, are these girths to your fancy now?’ said the landlord, aloud; then, as he stooped to alter a buckle, he said, in a voice meant to be heard only by Captain Bowles, ’If there’s a tongue, male or female, in the three kingdoms, it’s in that foremost woman, Mrs. Petito.’

‘Mrs. Petito!’ repeated Lord Colambre, as the name caught his ear; and, approaching the barouche in which the five abigails were now seated, he saw the identical Mrs. Petito, who, when he left London, had been in his mother’s service.

She recognised his lordship with very gracious intimacy; and, before he had time to ask any questions, she answered all she conceived he was going to ask, and with a volubility which justified the landlord’s eulogium of her tongue.

’Yes, my lord!  I left my Lady Clonbrony some time back—­the day after you left town; and both her ladyship and Miss Nugent was charmingly, and would have sent their loves to your lordship, I’m sure, if they’d any notion I should have met you, my lord, so soon.  And I was very sorry to part with them; but the fact was, my lord,’ said Mrs. Petito, laying a detaining hand upon Lord Colambre’s whip, one end of which he unwittingly trusted within her reach,—­’I and my lady had a little difference, which the best friends, you know, sometimes have; so my Lady Clonbrony was so condescending to give me up to my Lady Dashfort—­and I knew no more than the child unborn that her ladyship had it in contemplation to cross the seas.  But, to oblige my lady, and as Colonel Heathcock, with his regiment of militia, was coming for purtection in the packet at the same time, and we to have the government-yacht, I waived my objections to Ireland.  And, indeed, though I was greatly frighted at first, having heard all we’ve heard, you know, my lord, from Lady Clonbrony, of there being no living in Ireland, and expecting to see no trees nor accommodation, nor anything but bogs all along; yet I declare, I was very agreeably surprised; for, as far as I’ve seen at Dublin and in the vicinity, the accommodations, and everything of that nature, now is vastly put-up-able with!’—­’My lord,’ said Sir James Brooke, ‘we shall be late.’  Lord Colambre, shortly withdrawing his whip from Mrs. Petito, turned his horse away.  She, stretching over the back of the barouche as he rode off, bawled to him—­

‘My lord, we’re at Stephen’s Green, when we’re at Dublin.’  But as he did not choose to hear, she raised her voice to its highest pitch, adding—­