The astonished reader must be called upon to transport himself ten

thousand miles to the military station of Bundlegunge, in the Madras

division of our Indian empire, where our gallant old friends of the

--th regiment are quartered under the command of the brave Colonel, Sir

Michael O'Dowd. Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer, as it

does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and good tempers and

are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain. The Colonel plays

a good knife and fork at tiffin and resumes those weapons with great

success at dinner. He smokes his hookah after both meals and puffs as

quietly while his wife scolds him as he did under the fire of the

French at Waterloo.

Age and heat have not diminished the activity or

the eloquence of the descendant of the Malonys and the Molloys. Her

Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as much at home at Madras as at

Brussels in the cantonment as under the tents. On the march you saw

her at the head of the regiment seated on a royal elephant, a noble

sight. Mounted on that beast, she has been into action with tigers in

the jungle, she has been received by native princes, who have welcomed

her and Glorvina into the recesses of their zenanas and offered her

shawls and jewels which it went to her heart to refuse. The sentries

of all arms salute her wherever she makes her appearance, and she

touches her hat gravely to their salutation. Lady O'Dowd is one of the

greatest ladies in the Presidency of Madras--her quarrel with Lady

Smith, wife of Sir Minos Smith the puisne judge, is still remembered by

some at Madras, when the Colonel's lady snapped her fingers in the

Judge's lady's face and said SHE'D never walk behind ever a beggarly

civilian. Even now, though it is five-and-twenty years ago, people

remember Lady O'Dowd performing a jig at Government House, where she

danced down two Aides-de-Camp, a Major of Madras cavalry, and two

gentlemen of the Civil Service; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C.B.,

second in command of the --th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata

nondum satiata recessit.

Peggy O'Dowd is indeed the same as ever, kind in act and thought;

impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant over her Michael; a

dragon amongst all the ladies of the regiment; a mother to all the

young men, whom she tends in their sickness, defends in all their

scrapes, and with whom Lady Peggy is immensely popular. But the

Subalterns' and Captains' ladies (the Major is unmarried) cabal against

her a good deal. They say that Glorvina gives herself airs and that

Peggy herself is ill tolerably domineering. She interfered with a

little congregation which Mrs. Kirk had got up and laughed the young

men away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wife had no

business to be a parson--that Mrs. Kirk would be much better mending

her husband's clothes; and, if the regiment wanted sermons, that she

had the finest in the world, those of her uncle, the Dean. She abruptly

put a termination to a flirtation which Lieutenant Stubble of the

regiment had commenced with the Surgeon's wife, threatening to come

down upon Stubble for the money which he had borrowed from her (for the

young fellow was still of an extravagant turn) unless he broke off at

once and went to the Cape on sick leave. On the other hand, she housed

and sheltered Mrs. Posky, who fled from her bungalow one night, pursued

by her infuriate husband, wielding his second brandy bottle, and

actually carried Posky through the delirium tremens and broke him of

the habit of drinking, which had grown upon that officer, as all evil

habits will grow upon men. In a word, in adversity she was the best of

comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends, having a

perfectly good opinion of herself always and an indomitable resolution

to have her own way.




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