The old general now entered, with a black velvet sort of nightcap stuck rakishly on his head, and playing rather jauntily “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning,” to which he hummed an accompaniment—his voice displaying, as usual, all that vigour in its tones which, as I have before remarked, afforded so striking a contrast to his dried-up and time-worn frame: as he entered with his spindle shanks, huge frill, voluminous upper works, pigtail, and velvet cap, I thought I never saw a droller figure. Still the gallant bearing and nonchalance of the little old Irishman, who evidently was unconscious of anything at all out of the way in himself, rather neutralized any feeling of disrespect which his figure was at first calculated to excite. On seeing me, he finished off the saint with a few galloping flourishes, pushed the fiddle on the table; transferred the stick to his left hand, and made a rapid advance, or rather toddle, towards me, with his right extended. “Hah, sur, I’m glad to see you,” said he; “Mr. Gernon, I believe? Very happy indeed to have your company, sur; shall be glad to show you ivery attintion in ivery sense of the word, sur, for the sake of my old friend Sir Toby; and I doubt not,” he continued, with a low bow of the old school and a smile, “that I shall be able also to add, on your own.” As he made this courteous speech and inclination, his eye lighted on a letter lying on the table, which quickly threw the irritable old fellow off his balance, and put the courtier to flight. “Why,——mee heart, Cordalia,” he thundered out in a voice that startled me; “by all that’s good, that egragious ass, Ramdial, has gone without the letter. A man naid have the timper of an angel to dale with these fellows.” Mrs. Delaval, to cut the affair short, rose immediately from her seat, and taking the letter, called a servant to the head of the stairs, and quickly rectified the omission. “Thank ye, Cordalia, mee love,” said the old general as she returned; “thank ye, mee darling;” and taking her hand and drawing the graceful creature towards him, he imprinted a kiss on her cheek. There’s no use mincing matters—I certainly envied him the privilege. This little interruption over, I returned to a speech which, having previously worded and fashioned in rather a superior style, I thought it a pity should be lost. I said, after a hem or two, that I felt deeply obliged for his cordial reception of me, that I should study to deserve his good opinion, and to realize the gratifying anticipations he had so obligingly expressed, &c. &c. “Ye will, sur; ye will, sur,” said the general; “I’ve not the laste doubt of it; and, plase God, we’ll some day see you as accomplished a soldier as was your poor uncle, the colonel.” “What! sir,” said I, pleased with the discovery, and with no fear that _he_ was about to come Chattermohun over me; “did you then know my uncle, Colonel Gernon?”