But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment of Mrs.

O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung open, and a stout jolly lady,

in a riding-habit, followed by a couple of officers of Ours, entered

the room.

"Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time. Present me, Garge, my dear

fellow, to your lady. Madam, I'm deloighted to see ye; and to present

to you me husband, Meejor O'Dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the

riding-habit grasped Amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew at

once that the lady was before her whom her husband had so often laughed

at. "You've often heard of me from that husband of yours," said the

lady, with great vivacity.

"You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the Major.

Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."

"And small good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd replied; adding that

"George was a wicked divvle."

"That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look knowing, at

which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd, with a tap of her whip, told the

Major to be quiet; and then requested to be presented in form to Mrs.

Captain Osborne.

"This, my dear," said George with great gravity, "is my very good,

kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta, otherwise called Peggy."

"Faith, you're right," interposed the Major.

"Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael O'Dowd, of our regiment,

and daughter of Fitzjurld Ber'sford de Burgo Malony of Glenmalony,

County Kildare."

"And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm superiority.

"And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major whispered.

"'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady said; and the Major

assented to this as to every other proposition which was made generally

in company.

Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quarter of the

world, and had paid for every step in his profession by some more than

equivalent act of daring and gallantry, was the most modest, silent,

sheep-faced and meek of little men, and as obedient to his wife as if

he had been her tay-boy. At the mess-table he sat silently, and drank

a great deal. When full of liquor, he reeled silently home. When he

spoke, it was to agree with everybody on every conceivable point; and

he passed through life in perfect ease and good-humour. The hottest

suns of India never heated his temper; and the Walcheren ague never

shook it. He walked up to a battery with just as much indifference as

to a dinner-table; had dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal

relish and appetite; and had an old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of O'Dowdstown

indeed, whom he had never disobeyed but when he ran away and enlisted,

and when he persisted in marrying that odious Peggy Malony.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024