“Mr. Thompson then was a gentleman of no particular age, not quite so young as he had been, but still in very tolerable preservation, being pretty exactly that which is understood by the phrase an Old Beau.” And then, after describing the very artificial appearance of his physiognomy, she goes on to say: “Altogether it was a head calculated to convey a very favourable impression of the different artists employed in getting it up.” A very different personage to the Old Beau is described by Miss Mitford in a tale entitled _An Admiral on Shore_. Admiral Floyd, for so she calls him, had recently come with his wife to reside in the neighbourhood, and it was when paying a call upon them in their new home—a fine old mansion standing in beautiful grounds, known as the White House at Hannonby—that she first made his acquaintance. “I had been proceeding to call on our new neighbours,” writes Miss Mitford, “when a very unaccountable noise induced me to pause at the entrance; a moment’s observation explained the nature of the sound. The Admiral was shooting wasps with a pocket pistol.... There under the shade of tall elms sat the veteran, a little old withered man, very like a pocket pistol himself, brown, succinct, grave and fiery. He wore an old-fashioned naval uniform of blue, faced with white, which set off his mahogany countenance, drawn into a thousand deep wrinkles.... At his side stood a very tall, masculine, large-boned, middle-aged woman, something like a man in petticoats, whose face, in spite of a quantity of rouge and a small portion of modest assurance, might still be called handsome, and could never be mistaken for belonging to other than an Irish woman.... A younger lady was watching them at a little distance apparently as much amused as myself. On her advancing to meet me the pistol was put down and the Admiral joined us. We were acquainted in a moment, and before the end of my visit he had shown me all over his house and told me the whole history of his life and adventures. “At twelve years old he was sent to sea, and had remained there ever since till now, when an unlucky promotion had sent him ashore and seemed likely to keep him there. I never saw a man so unaffectedly displeased with his own title.