"I should like to play you Rossini's' Di tanti palpiti," rejoined Fanny, archly; "I do think you would admire that." "Di tanti fiddlestick!" cried Sir Monk. "No, no! you and Ellen may play as much sentimental stuff as you please, to amuse your company; but when you wish to amuse me, give me one of those old stirring battle-songs, that make me feel young again. You might as well put Llewelyn in petticoats, as expect an old soldier, like me, to listen to an Italian love-ditty." "But I suppose," said Ellen, with the most unaffected simplicity, "that in following the example of the great, in music and other matters of taste, we cannot get far wrong." "Oh, indeed, but we can, though! The artificial light in which the élite move, blinds them to the beauties of Nature. The whole tutorage of the great, from the cradle to the grave, is to banish her from their splendid saloons, and to anathematize all her warmest and most generous impulses, as the offspring of weakness, or prejudice, or (worse than all, in fashionable eyes) "Then I am sure I should never wish to mix in the world of fashion." "Be assured, my darling, that if you ever do, you will find it very heartless, and very hollow. As in all things, extremes are undesirable, so a middle station, with a cultivated understanding, is by far the happiest. This reminds me," added Sir Monk, laughing, "of an apt illustration on the other side of the question, and one close at home too. I happened to pass by the dairy the other day, when the under-gardener and Molly, the dairy-maid, were having a little gossip together; and I overheard poor Molly say, with a deep sigh, Oh, I wish I was a queen!' Why, what would you do, if you was? inquired Owen. Do, Owen !-what would I do? Why, lie a-bed all day, eat goose, and play at cards, to be sure !'"* "How very ridiculous !" said Ellen. "Ridiculous enough!" continued the baronet: "but it serves to show what are Molly's notions, in her present state of ignorance and simplicity, of the highest earthly happiness; and at the same time, it indicates, that if she could only step into the possession of rank and fortune, she would be as lazy, and as dissipated, as any duchess in the land?" And now, while the old footman, Griffith, is busied in closing shutters, and arranging the equipage of the tea-table, we'll just take a walk into the housekeeper's room; the very best place in the world for learning family secrets, and the worst for keeping them. This records a literal fact; with this only difference, that the servant girl, who gave utterance to these high aspirations, carried them to a point of still greater absurdity. CHAPTER II. "Like some old picture in its frame, Of mincing airs, sips cherry brandy, Or prime old port, from cupboard handy!" "THE captain was in a hurry to-night," said Mrs. Lloyd (the housekeeper), as she handed the old butler a glass of choice liqueur, from her private repository. "Yes," answered Morgan; "he's going a hunting to-morrow, with the colonel.” "Somebody will be sorry for that, I know," cried the young lady's-maid. “And pray, Mistress Grace, who may somebody be?" asked Morgan. "Oh! that's telling !" said the pretty Abigail, simpering. "Well, there's no harm in telling the truth. But I can guess," (with a wink of his cunning grey eye;) "Miss Fanny." "Miss Fanny!" echoed the old housekeeper. "La! Mr. Morgan! how you talk! I'll answer for it, Miss Fanny don't want the captain for a sweetheart, not she. With such a fine fortin, she won't be put to her shifts for a husband." "Put to her shifts!" said Grace. "Oh, la! I'm sure Captain O'Sullivan is one of the finest and most genteelest young gentlemen as can be seen anywhere." "And so he is, Mistress Grace !" said the butler: "and Miss Fanny would make him a nice wife, and then her share of the property would be kept snug in the family." "How can that be?" asked the housekeeper, sharply. "The captain's no proper relation of the Moyles." "I don't know what you call proper, Mrs. Lloyd; but of a certain, Miss Fanny's mamma was an O'Sullivan, and own aunt to the captain." "Own aunt, or own uncle," rejoined the angry dame, "I don't call that keeping the property in the Moyle family; and I hope Miss Fanny will never marry an Irishman, that's all. If you was only to hear old Jones, Mistress Grace; the tales as he tells about them Irish. How they worships stocks and stones; and lives, pigs and all, in one room, up to their knees in filth and dirt; and has nothing to eat but sour milk and potatoes, all the year round." "Oh, la!" exclaimed Grace; "I'm sure Sir Monk would never think of going to Ireland, if it's so bad as you say. La! he would never take my young ladies amongst such savages." "Why, you see, Mistress Grace," said the butler, "you can't depend on old Jones, a ignorant, unedicated man, as one may say. Now I, as have been in Ireland, am like to know some at about it, seeing I was at some of the first houses there; and for my part, I never saw no such things. We lived on the best of everything. Such dinners, and such suppers, and such merrymakings, to be sure! as we had at my Lord Fingal's, and Sir Randal Macneil's, and old Captain Brabazon's! There was no going sober to bed any night. And the wakes, Lord bless us! that was the time for drinking. I remember when Master Boys' butler died; there they all set up in the old hall, howling and drinking whisky; and telling stories of ghosts, and hobgoblins, till they forgot to put up fresh corpse-candles; and old father Barnaby, as was the family confessor, cried out, the evil spirits would torment the body, for want of lights to scare them. Ah, Mistress Grace! it's rare work as can be; that waking the dead! it's for all the world like a wedding." "I'm sure it's quite shameful, profane-like," cried the housekeeper; "to drink, and make such a racket, about the dead." "Why, so it would, if they was Christian people, like us, Mistress Lloyd. But you see they means it all well, and for a compliment, to make as much noise as ever they can, about the body of a friend. And some of the best howlers will be as hoarse, next day, as ravens; you can't hear never a word they say. And, yet, for all that, the Irish are the kindest and best-hearted people in the world, and I am mighty fond of them." 66 Well," said Mrs. Lloyd, "I should be sorry to lay my bones amongst them. I'm sure, nobody, as wishes our young ladies well, can want them to get Irish husbands. I suppose, Grace, you'll be bringing back some long-legged Irishman for a husband." "La, Mrs. Lloyd!" answered Grace, with a pretty simper; "how can you talk so?" “Oh, yes! I dare say you will; and Miss Ellen, and Miss Fanny, too. Them Irishers are fine fortin-hunters, we all know that. They'll not be long a finding out that our young ladies has got something better than their pretty faces to recommend them. Well! I do hope Sir Monk wont give a farthing of the Moyle property to any Irish fellow, that's all !" 66 Only to Captain O'Sullivan," rejoined Morgan, winking at Grace. "He's a fine spirited young man, and won't disgrace the best Moyle as ever lived at Madoc Hall. So I hopes Miss Fanny won't give him 'No' for his supper, when he pops the question.' "I tell you what, Mr. Morgan !" said the flushed and angry housekeeper, rising with official dignity from her great chair, and gathering up the ample folds of her brown tabby gown, with both hands. "I'll tell you what! if the Captain does pop the question, as you call it, to Miss Fanny, Sir Monk will pop him out of this house, as sure as I stand here." "We shall see!" said the butler, nodding his head; "we shall see!" "Yes!" retorted the old lady, as she bustled out of the room; we shall see, as blind Hugh said, that never saw at all. He, he, he!" "Oh, Mr. Morgan !" cried Grace, showing her white teeth through a wicked smile; "how can you be so cruel to poor Mrs. Lloyd?" "Ha! ha! poor old soul! I loves to teaze her a little sometimes. She is so hobstinate, you see; and will always know better than everybody. But, come now, Mistress Grace, do tell me, now she's gone-do you think Miss Fanny is really in love. with the Captain?" "Oh, la! how can I tell?" "Yes, you can, better than anybody else," said Morgan, drawing his chair close to that of his pretty companion. “I'm sure you can tell me, if you please. Yes; you have talking eyes, as well as handsome ones, pretty Grace !" and here the old man tried to make his talk. But, somehow, the effort to speak tender things with his eyes, was attended with certain twitchings and puckerings about those venerable orbs, not so favourable to love, as to mirth; and Mistress Grace laughed outright. "Oh! you little merry thing! you have some funny thoughts your head, I see. Well, well! 'laugh, and grow fat,' as the saying goes; and I think pretty Grace shows that." in Oh, dear! Mr. Morgan, don't pinch me so! you've quite hurt my arm;" cried the little lady of the toilette, in return for the old man's tender squeeze. "Ah, Grace! Grace! If I was but a few years younger, you would not treat me so. I've saved a good round sum though, I can tell you, since I bin in Sir Monk's service." "I dare say you have, Mister Morgan; and I hope you will leave me something handsome in your will." (Here the poor butler groaned audibly.) "Now do, that's a dear good man!Oh! there's Miss Ellen's bell!" And away tripped Grace, leaving her ancient lover to chew the cud of bitter reflection, and wish he could be ground young again, to please pretty Mistress Grace, whose jaunty, gossiping character delighted old Morgan, almost as much as her beauty. In truth, he dearly loved, as most old servants do, to be at the bottom of all the family secrets, or (as he himself termed it,) "to know how things were going;" and therefore, in addition to the check which his more tender aspirations had just received, he was grievously disappointed, that he had been able to elicit nothing from Grace, respecting her young mistress and Captain O'Sullivan, not doubting, in his own mind, that there was some love secret between them, and that she "know'd all about it." That servants frequently know the hearts, as well as the tempers of those they serve, better than the owners themselves, is a truism not to be disputed. And of all servants, perhaps, a lady's-maid may claim the pre-eminence in this respect, particularly as a skilful adept in all the mysteries of the tender passion. Those Floras of the toilette, without any obliquity of vision, seem fully entitled to all the praise implied in the following lines, upon a lady who unfortunately squinted : "If heathen poets Argus prize, Who boasted of a hundred eyes; Now, Mistress Grace did not squint; but she made as good a use of her two eyes, as some would of a hundred. In the twinkling of an eye she saw everything. A smile, a tear, the faintest blush, she could detect; and draw her string of inferences, secundum artem, as quickly as she drew the thread through the eye of her needle. In a word, it was utterly impossible for either man, woman, or child to escape the inquisitorial glances of pretty Mistress Grace. (To be continued.) SONG. THE BOATMAN IS CALLING. BY MRS. CRAWFORD. THE boatman is calling away! I return without thee at my side: In the night of my spirit so dark, The boatman is calling away! Farewell! and let memory bring The boatman is calling away! |