Fat, short, radiant, General Chattesworth—­in full, artillery uniform—­was there, smiling, and making little speeches to the ladies, and bowing stiffly from his hips upward—­his great cue playing all the time up and down his back, and sometimes so near the ground when he stood erect and threw back his head, that Toole, seeing Juno eyeing the appendage rather viciously, thought it prudent to cut her speculations short with a smart kick.

His sister Rebecca—­tall, erect, with grand lace, in a splendid stiff brocade, and with a fine fan—­was certainly five-and-fifty, but still wonderfully fresh, and sometimes had quite a pretty little pink colour—­perfectly genuine—­in her cheeks; command sat in her eye and energy on her lip—­but though it was imperious and restless, there was something provokingly likeable and even pleasant in her face.  Her niece, Gertrude, the general’s daughter, was also tall, graceful—­and, I am told, perfectly handsome.

‘Be the powers, she’s mighty handsome!’ observed ‘Lieutenant Fireworker’ O’Flaherty, who, being a little stupid, did not remember that such a remark was not likely to pleasure the charming Magnolia Macnamara, to whom he had transferred the adoration of a passionate, but somewhat battered heart.

‘They must not see with my eyes that think so,’ said Mag, with a disdainful toss of her head.

’They say she’s not twenty, but I’ll wager a pipe of claret she’s something to the back of it,’ said O’Flaherty, mending his hand.

’Why, bless your innocence, she’ll never see five-and-twenty, and a bit to spare,’ sneered Miss Mag, who might more truly have told that tale of herself.  ’Who’s that pretty young man my Lord Castlemallard is introducing to her and old Chattesworth?’ The commendation was a shot at poor O’Flaherty.

‘Hey—­so, my Lord knows him!’ says Toole, very much interested.  ’Why that’s Mr. Mervyn, that’s stopping at the Phoenix.  A. Mervyn,—­I saw it on his dressing case.  See how she smiles.’

‘Ay, she simpers like a firmity kettle,’ said scornful Miss Mag.

’They’re very grand to-day, the Chattesworths, with them two livery footmen behind them,’ threw in O’Flaherty, accommodating his remarks to the spirit of his lady-love.

‘That young buck’s a man of consequence,’ Toole rattled on; ’Miss does not smile on everybody.’

’Ay, she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, but I warrant cheese won’t choke her,’ Magnolia laughed out with angry eyes.

Magnolia’s fat and highly painted parent—­poor bragging, good-natured, cunning, foolish Mrs. Macnamara, the widow—­joined, with a venemous wheeze in the laugh.