The person about whom all this fuss was made, was a tall, and very stout woman of fifty years of age; but active and energetic looking for her time of life. Her appearance was eccentric enough to afford ample scope for all the odd sayings and doings in circulation respecting her. She had a satirical, laughing, jolly red face, with very obtuse features; and, in order to conceal hair of a decidedly carroty hue, she wore an elaborately curled flaxen wig, which nearly covered her large forehead, and hung over her eyes like the curly coat of a French poodle dog. This was so carelessly adjusted, that the red and flaxen formed a curious shading round her face, as their tendrils mingled and twined within each other. Her countenance, even in youth, must have been coarse and vulgar; in middle life, it was masculine and decidedly ugly, with no redeeming feature, but the large good-natured mouth, well set with brilliantly white teeth—strong, square, even teeth, that seem to express their owner’s love of good cheer; and silently intimated, that they had no light duty to perform, and were made expressly for eating. Miss Carr, though she sported a man’s hat and carried a cane, dressed expensively, her outer garments being made of the richest materials; but she wore these so ridiculously short, that her petticoats barely reached below the middle of her legs; leaving exposed to general observation, the only beauty she possessed—a remarkably handsome and neatly made foot and ankle. Now, we don’t believe that Miss Carr cared a fig about her handsome legs and feet. If they had belonged to the regular Mullingar breed, she would have shown them as freely to all the world; simply, because she chose to do so. She was a great pedestrian, to whom long petticoats would have been uncomfortable and inconvenient. If she was vain of anything, it was of her powers of locomotion. She had made the tour of Europe on foot and alone, and still continued to walk her ten or fourteen miles a day, let the weather be what it would. Hail, rain, blow, or snow, it was all one to Miss Carr. “She was walking,” she said, “to keep herself in practice, as she was contemplating another long journey on foot.” Ida Pfeiffer, the celebrated female traveller, was unknown in those days; or Miss Carr might have taken the shine out of that adventurous lady; as easily as the said Ida destroys all the romantic notions previously entertained by stay-at-home travellers, about the lands she visits, and the people who form the subjects of her entertaining matter-of-fact books.