So it came to pass that the grand new carriage was ordered to the door, and Sir Cradock would himself have gone—only Rufus Hutton had left him, and the eloquence was oozing. The old man, therefore, turned back on the threshold, saying to himself that it would be hardly decent to appear in public yet; and Mrs. OʼGaghan was sent instead, sitting inside, and half afraid to breathe for fear of the crystal. As for her clothes, they were good enough, she knew, for the Lord Mayorʼs coach. “Five–and–sixpence a yard, maʼam, lave alone trimming and binding.” But, knowing what she did of herbs, she could not answer for the peppermint. Of course, they did not intend to fetch poor Eoa home yet; but Biddy had orders to stay there until the young lady was moveable. Biddy took to her at once, in her heavy, long–drawn sleep, with the soft black lashes now and then lifting from the rich brown cheek. “An’ if she isnʼt illigant, then,” said Biddy to Mrs. Brown, “ate me wiʼout a purratie. Arl coom ov’ the blude, missus. Sazins, then, if me and Pat had oonly got a child this day! Belikes, maʼam, for the matter o’ that, a drap o’ whisky disagrays with you.” Biddy, feeling strongly moved, and burning to drink her new childʼs health, showed a bottle of brown potheen. “To tell you the truth, mem,” said Mrs. Brown, “I know nothing about them subjects. Spirituous liquors is a thing as has always been beyond me.” “Thin Iʼll clap it away again,” said Biddy, “and the divvil only the wiser. I never takes it alone, marm.” “It would ill become me, mem,” replied Mrs. Brown, “to be churlish in my own house, mem. I have heard of you very often, mem. Yes, I assure you I have, from the people as comes to bathe here, as a lady of great experience in diseases of the chest. If you recommend any cordial, mem, on the strength of your experience, for a female of weak witality, I should take it as a dooty, mem, strictly as a dooty to my husband and two darters.” “Arrah, then, Iʼm your femmale. Me witality goes crossways, like, till I has a drap o’ the crather.” And so they made a night of it, and Mr. Brown had some. CHAPTER VII. Leave we now, with story pending, Biddy and Eoa, Pearl, and even Amy; thee, too, rare Bull, and thee, O Rufus, overcast with anger. It is time to track the steps of him whom Fortune, blithe at her cruel trade, shall track as far as Gades, Cantaber, and wild Syrtes, where the Moorish billow is for ever heaving. Will he exclaim with the poet, who certainly was a jolly mortal,—“I praise her while she is my guest. If she flap her nimble wings, I renounce her charities; and wrap me in my manhood robe, and woo the upright poverty, the bride without a dower.” “A very fine sentiment, Master Horace; but were you not a little too fond even of Sabine and Lesbian—when the Massic juice was beyond your credit—to do anything more than _feel_ it?”