Mr. and Mrs. Sparkler. 157 



and to the great astonishment of everybody, not 

 only did he smilingly assent, but he went, and Charles 

 Wildoats, who was one of the party, declared the next 

 day that he could not have believed that old Daisyfield 

 could have laughed as he did when, in the drawing-room 

 after dinner, Mrs. Sparkler dressed up in the old 

 familiar war-paint, and sang for his lordship's especial 

 benefit her celebrated song of the '' Boy with the Evening 

 Peepers.''' When between the verses, in the style that 

 always brought down the house at the music halls in the 

 old days, she rushed up to my lord with a bundle of 

 newspapers in her hand, and thrusting them under his 

 nose, screamed out, '' Here y' are, sttr ! Speshul 'dish- 

 un ! Strange pro-ceedings hin ther Di-vorce Court this 

 day ! The co-respondent diskivered hunder the Grand 

 Pianner ! " the delighted old peer laughed until the 

 tears ran down his face, and, as Wildoats declared, until his 

 white choker (a very formidable affair) became positively 

 limp. Though, as we have before observed the Sparklers 

 — or rather, Mrs. Sparkler — don't go down with the 

 ladies of the county, they are amazingly popular with 

 everyone else for all that. The pair of them, I feel quite 

 sure, might ride over all the wheat in the county, and 

 smash every gate that came in their way, and not a 

 farmer would be found to say them nay. Mrs. Gapeseed 

 having heard sundry rumours of this little attempt of 

 ours at portrait painting, taxed us with it at a dinner 

 party at the Timmins's one fine night. " Of course, Mr. 

 Finch Mason," said she, puckering up her mouth into what 

 no doubt she thought a most captivating grin ; ''of course 

 you won't include amongst your portraits those very 

 dreadful young people at Crackleton Court ? Such 



