"On turning round I perceived Miss Hyde, with the general's lady, under the awning on the other side, where the old lady leant against a cushion, with her hands crossed and her bonnet strings loose--though a strapping raw-boned Irishwoman she was--and kept Miss Hyde's maid fanning her from behind with a large feather _punkah_. The old lady had started at Ford's cry, and gave a look round at me, half fierce and half orderly, as if she expected to know what was the matter at once. 'Only my friend lost his hat, ma'am,' said I, stepping forward. 'These cadets are so 'tagious, my dear!' said she to the young lady, falling back again without the least more notice of me. 'They plague the life of me, but the brigadier can't drill them as he would if this were a troopship--I wish he could, for the sake of the profession!--now, my dear, _you_ kape out of the s-hun!' However, I stuck where I was, fancying I caught the slightest bit of an arch twinkle in the corner of the young lady's eye, though she didn't look at me. 'Keep going, can't ye!' said the old lady crossly to the maid. 'No, ma'am, indeed!' said the girl, glancing over to her young mistress, 'I'm ready to drop!' 'Send up papa's _kitmagar_, then, Wilkins,' said Miss Hyde; and the girl went off toward the gallery stair, muttering she 'hoped she didn't come--here to be--made a black Indian slave of--at least to a old'--the remainder being lost in the stair. "As I leant on the rail-netting, behind the old lady, I happened to tread on her fat pug-dog's tail, whereupon the ugly brute made its teeth meet, without further notice, in the small of my leg, after which it gave a yelp, and ran beneath the chairs. 'What's that, Die?' exclaimed its mistress; 'good hivens! is that same griffin here _yet_, my dear! Hadn't he ayven the spirit to take a hint?--I say, was it _you_ hurt Dianny, young man?' 'Oh dear no, ma'am, not for the world!' said I, looking at my trousers, hard as the thing was to stand, but thinking to smooth her over, though I wasn't quite up to the old Irishwoman it turned out. 'Ha! ha! so she bit you?' said she, with a flash of her hawk's eye, and leaning back again coolly. 'If he'd only kicked poor Die for it under my chair now, I'd have forgiven him; but he hadn't ayven the heart at the time to drop her a curse--and _I_ thinking all the while, too, by the luke of his eye he was from the County Clare! My heart warms to the County Clare always, because, although I'm not Irish myself, you know, I'd once a schoolfellow was born in it--without counting all my relations! Oh, the smooth spalpeen!' continued she, harder than before, glancing at me as I looked all abroad from one to the other; 'listen, niver you let that fellow spake to you, my dear! he's too----' But here I walked quietly off to put the poop's length betwixt me and the talking old vixen, cursing her and her dog both, quite enough to have pleased her Irish fancy.