Dr. Toole, without whom no jollification of any sort could occur satisfactorily in Chapelizod or the country round, was this evening at the ‘King’s House,’ of course, as usual, with his eyes about him and his tongue busy; and at this moment he was setting Cluffe right about Devereux’s relation to the title and estates of Athenry. His uncle Roland Lord Athenry was, as everybody knew, a lunatic — Toole used to call him Orlando Furioso: and Lewis, his first cousin by his father’s elder brother — the heir presumptive — was very little better, and reported every winter to be dying. He spends all his time — his spine being made, it is popularly believed, of gristle — stretched on his back upon a deal board, cutting out paper figures with a pair of scissors. Toole used to tell them at the club, when alarming letters arrived about the health of the noble uncle and his hopeful nephew — the heir apparent —‘That’s the gentleman who’s back-bone’s made of jelly — eh, Puddock? Two letters come, by Jove, announcing that Dick Devereux’s benefit is actually fixed for the Christmas holidays, when his cousin undertakes to die for positively the last time, and his uncle will play in the most natural manner conceivable, the last act of “King Lear.”’ In fact, this family calamity was rather a cheerful subject among Devereux’s friends; and certainly Devereux had no reason to love that vicious, selfish old lunatic, Lord Athenry, who in his prodigal and heartless reign, before straw and darkness swallowed him, never gave the boy a kind word or gentle look, and owed him a mortal grudge because he stood near the kingdom, and wrote most damaging reports of him at the end of the holidays, and despatched those letters of Bellerophon by the boy’s own hand to the schoolmaster, with the natural results.

When Aunt Rebecca rustled into the ring that was gathered round about the fiddles and tambourine, she passed Miss Magnolia very near, with a high countenance, and looking straight before her, and with no more recognition than the tragedy queen bestows upon the painted statue on the wing by which she enters. And Miss Mag followed her with a titter and an angry flash of her eyes. So Aunt Rebecca made up to the little hillock — little bigger than a good tea-cake — on which the dowager was perched in a high-backed chair, smiling over the dancers with a splendid benignity, and beating time with her fat short foot. And Aunt Becky told Mrs. Colonel Stafford, standing by, she had extemporised a living Watteau, and indeed it was a very pretty picture, or Aunt Becky would not have said so; and ‘craning’ from this eminence she saw her niece coming leisurely round, not in company of Mervyn.

That interesting stranger, on the contrary, had by this time joined Lilias and Devereux, who had returned toward the dancers, and was talking again with Miss Walsingham. Gertrude’s beau was little Puddock, who was all radiant and supremely blest. But encountering rather a black look from Aunt Becky as they drew near, he deferentially surrendered the young lady to the care of her natural guardian, who forthwith presented her to the dowager; and Puddock, warned off by another glance, backed away, and fell, unawares, helplessly into the possession of Miss Magnolia, a lady whom he never quite understood, and whom he regarded with a very kind and polite sort of horror.

So the athletic Magnolia instantly impounded the little lieutenant, and began to rally him, in the sort of slang she delighted in, with plenty of merriment and malice upon his tendre for Miss Chattesworth, and made the gallant young gentleman blush and occasionally smile, and bow a great deal, and take some snuff.

‘And here comes the Duchess of Belmont again,’ said the saucy Miss Magnolia, seeing the stately approach of Aunt Becky, as it seemed to Puddock, through the back of her head. I think the exertion and frolic of the dance had got her high blood up into a sparkling state, and her scorn and hate of Aunt Rebecca was more demonstrative than usual. ‘Now you’ll see how she’ll run against poor little simple me, just because I’m small. And this is the way they dance it,’ cried she, in a louder tone; and capering backward with a bounce, and an air, and a grace, she came with a sort of a courtesy, and a smart bump, and a shock against the stately Miss Rebecca; and whisking round with a little scream and a look of terrified innocence, and with her fingers to her heart, to suppress an imaginary palpitation, dropped a low courtesy, crying —

‘I’m blest but I thought ’twas tall Burke, the gunner.’

‘You might look behind before you spring backward, young gentlewoman,’ said Aunt Becky, with a very bright colour.

‘And you might look before you before you spring forward, old gentlewoman,’ replied Miss Mag, just as angry.

‘Young ladies used to have a respect to decorum,’ Aunt Becky went on.

‘So they prayed me to tell you, Madam,’ replied the young lady, with a very meek courtesy, and a very crimson face.

‘Yes, Miss Mac — Mag — Madam — it used to be so,’ rejoined Aunt Rebecca, ‘’twas part of my education, at least, to conduct myself in a polite company like a civilised person.’

‘“I wish I could see it,” says blind Hugh,’ Magnolia retorted; ‘but ’twas a good while ago, Madam, and you’ve had time to forget.’

‘I shall acquaint your mother, Mrs.— Mug — Mac — Macnamara, with your pretty behaviour tomorrow,’ said Miss Rebecca.

‘To-morrow’s a new day, and mother may be well enough then to hear your genteel lamentation; but I suppose you mean tomorrow come never,’ answered Magnolia, with another of her provoking meek courtesies.

‘Oh, this is Lieutenant Puddock,’ said Aunt Becky, drawing off in high disdain, ‘the bully of the town. Your present company, Sir, will find very pretty work, I warrant, for your sword and pistols; Sir Launcelot and his belle!’

‘Do you like a belle or beldame best, Sir Launcelot?’ enquired Miss Mag, with a mild little duck to Puddock.

‘You’ll have your hands pretty full, Sir, ha, ha, ha!’ and with scarlet cheeks, and a choking laugh, away sailed Aunt Rebecca.

‘Choke, chicken, there’s more a-hatching,’ said Miss Mag, in a sort of aside, and cutting a flic-flac with a merry devilish laugh, and a wink to Puddock. That officer, being a gentleman, was a good deal disconcerted, and scandalised — too literal to see, and too honest to enjoy, the absurd side of the combat.

’Twas an affair of a few seconds, like two frigates crossing in a gale, with only opportunity for a broadside or two; and when the Rebecca Chattesworth sheered off, it can’t be denied, her tackling was a good deal more cut up, and her hull considerably more pierced, than those of the saucy Magnolia, who sent that whistling shot and provoking cheer in her majestic wake.

‘I see you want to go, Lieutenant Puddock — Lieutenant O’Flaherty, I promised to dance this country dance with you; don’t let me keep you, Ensign Puddock,’ said Miss Mag in a huff, observing little Puddock’s wandering eye and thoughts.

‘I— a — you see, Miss Macnamara, truly you were so hard upon poor Miss Rebecca Chattesworth, that I............