This gifted and venerable lady died at her mansion at Duntrune on the 23d August 1877, at the extreme age of ninety-five. Perhaps, the present paper may help to make her _Mystifications_ more extensively known than hitherto; this object, however, might be better served by a cheap and popular edition of the work, amplified by explanatory notes. The book, enriched by the tasteful preface of Dr John Brown, is a gem which ought not to drop out of notice. W. C. HELENA, LADY HARROGATE. CHAPTER VII.—A NEW FACE AT CARBERY. ‘She be coming for sure. Carriage, with second coachman, just getting ready for a start to Dundleton, to meet the down train at 9.17,’ said a pink-faced youth, whose stature and chest measurement would have procured for him the interested admiration of a sergeant-major in Her Majesty’s Brigade of Guards, but who was as yet but imperfect in his domestic drill as third footman at Carbery Chase. ‘What’s 9.17?’ demanded the mature female addressed, with some asperity, as she dredged flour over some cunningly compounded mess simmering beside the fire in the back-kitchen. ‘Can’t you give a body the time o’ the day? They didn’t cut it so fine when I was your age, young chap!’ And indeed it is marvellous to note how the junior population throughout Western Christendom appears to have learned to think and speak by railway time, and to have been, as it were, inoculated by Bradshaw. ‘Thought you knowed all that ’n, cook!’ half-sulkily, half-apologetically rejoined the gigantic hobbledehoy, mindful of that functionary’s empire over the roasts, subject of course to the high fiat of Monsieur Cornichon, the white-capped and black-bearded _chef_. ‘Anyhow, this Miss Whatshername ’ll be here soon after eleven.’ ‘Willis is her name, and she comes from the Ingees,’ put in a tart young town-made house-maid. ‘I wonder if she’s black?’ This quasi-witticism provoked a titter among the rest of the under-servants there collected; for anything was welcome that could excuse a laugh; and besides, a new recruit to the aristocracy of the waited-upon is sure to be smartly criticised by the plebs of those who wait. ‘_I_ wonder,’ said the old sub-cook, stirring her saucepan, ‘if she’ll be setting her cap at young Mr Jasper?’ ‘The captain knows too well on which side his bread is buttered,’ pronounced the gaunt house-maid-in-chief, an invaluable female, lynx-eyed for spiders’ webs, and vigilant as to the minutest details of bedroom duty.