"I'll kape me eye on yez so that ye won't have the bother of hunting for me when the dance is over," said Mrs. O'Flaherty. "I'd be askin' Misther Marvin to lade me out himself av I was a few year younger. But we'll be afther havin' some liquid refreshment whilst yer divartin' yerselves. Would ye take yer foot off me tail, if ye plase, sir?"--this last to a gentleman who had inadvertently trod on the train of her dress. The people about us were beginning to titter. One never knows where little accomplishments, which can be easily acquired, may turn of use. I had learned to dance, not because I intended to go to balls or parties, but because I thought it foolish to run the risk of some time or other being placed at a disadvantage through want of proficiency in so easy an art. On the present occasion I was rewarded by having a most delightful companion during a considerable portion of the evening. At first our conversation was, of course, of a more or less commonplace character. When the first waltz was over we found that Mervin had escaped from Mrs. O'Flaherty. But the worthy dame had got a companion of her own sex and age, and when I had supplied them with some of the "liquid refreshment" they were both partial to, "Polly," as she called her beautiful daughter, was free to join me in another dance. How Miss O'Flaherty could be her daughter was an enigma which completely baffled me. There was not a particle of family likeness between them; and while Mrs. O'Flaherty was the embodiment of good-natured vulgarity, Miss O'Flaherty was a clever, highly-educated young lady, whose perfectly self-possessed and polished manners showed unmistakably that she had been brought up in the society of people who were, to put it mildly, better bred than her mother. Our conversation, as I have said, was at first about commonplace matters, such as the difference of the climate in England and the south of France in winter; the difference of English and French customs; the light literature of the day, and so on. I have heard a story of an eminent queen's counsel who had been examining the Duke of Wellington before a Parliamentary committee, and who, on being asked by a friend if he had been examining the great duke, replied, "No, it was he who was examining me." I felt in somewhat the same predicament with Miss O'Flaherty. There was nothing of the blue-stocking or the _doctrinaire_ about her. She was perfectly unpretentious, and unself-conscious. But she was so full of information, and her memory and imagination moved so quickly and naturally, that whatever subject we spoke about she seemed to lead the conversation. At length, as we were sitting in a retired part of the room, and were speaking about music, I told her of a musician I knew, who had a dog that he had to put out of the room before the music began, because it cried so much.