28 The Chirpingtons of Larkley Hall. 



brewed, can't find it in her acidulated old heart to say any- 

 thing bitter of Mrs. Chirpington to her cronies at her five 

 o'clock tea table. It was Mrs. Babbler who was the 

 sole cause of the separation for more than a year 

 between Colonel Sprightly and his pretty young wife. 

 It was only by the merest chance indeed that the 

 Colonel at last found out his mistake. When he 

 did find it out he hastened to make it up with the 

 poor little woman, you may depend, and they now 

 live together again the happiest of couples. Mrs. Babbler 

 says that, in her opinion, the Colonel is but a poor, weak 

 creature. The gallant officer himself, I regret to say, 

 is rude enough to express his feelings since the occurrence 

 in the most open way, and has been heard to aver over 

 his after-dinner bottle of claret that, if he had his way, he 

 should uncommonly like to burn that old Jezebel (as he 

 irreverently terms Mrs. Babbler), for a witch in front of her 

 husband's cathedral. ''As for the bishop," goes on the 

 gallant officer, '' why, he's a dashed good fellow, and I'm 

 sorry for him, begad I am." 



No, even Mrs. Babbler can't say a word against sporting 

 Mrs. Chirpington, though her sense of decorum was so con- 

 siderably shocked one fine afternoon when out for an airing 

 in her carriage, by meeting the hounds in the midst of a 

 run, and beholding Mrs. C, her face red, her hair ruffled, 

 and her habit torn, come bounding over a big fence into 

 the road, and then across and over the opposite one, also a 

 big one, like a flash of lightning, '' before her own hus- 

 band actually," would say Mrs. Babbler when describing 

 the incident (Chirpington's second horse had not turned 

 up at the right moment, and he was consequently a bit 

 behind-hand). 



