256 MEMOIR OF A GENTLEMAN. 



form one of the coryphees, who were quadrilling upon the 

 quarter-deck, I was likely enough to be left to meditative 

 solitude. 



" But there was another person who appeared to hold 

 no communion with the company. One lady seemed a 

 stranger to the rest. Accident placed me beside her, and 

 thus she became more intimately my compagnon de voyage. 



" She was certainly a fine-looking woman ; her face was 

 comely, but somewhat coarse ; her hair and brows black as 

 the raven's plumage, her nose rather too marked for a woman's 

 but then her waist and legs were unexceptionable. She 

 evidently possessed a sufficiency of self-command ; no mauvaise 

 honte, no feminine timidity oppressed her. She looked bravely 

 around, as if she would assert a superiority ; and accepted my 

 civilities graciously, it is true, but with the air and dignity of 

 a duchess. She was, from the start, no favourite with the 

 company, and there was no inclination evinced by any of her 

 own sex to make approaches to familiarity. The cockney 

 beaus looked upon her as a fine but formidable animal ; and to 

 me, unworthy as I was, the honour of being cavalier serviente> 

 was conceded without a contest. Indeed, at dinner, my 

 fair friend proved herself too edged a tool for civic wit to touch 

 upon. When, with ultra-elegance, an auctioneer, whose 

 assurance was undeniable, pressed ' the Hirish lady to teest a 

 roast fole,' she obliterated the accomplished appraiser, by 

 brusquely replying, ' that no earthly consideration could 

 induce her to eat horse-flesh /' 



"And yet to this woman I was irresitibly attracted. I sate 

 beside her on the deck, and I ministered to her coffee-cup ; 

 and when the Nereid disembarked her crowd, and a stout, 

 red -whiskered, do-no-good looking gentleman presented him- 

 self upon the chain-pier, and claimed his c gentle cousin,' a 

 pang of agony shot across my breast, and for the first time I 

 felt the curse of jealousy. And yet, God knows, she was not 

 the person from whom ( little Popes' might be expected ; her 

 tender pledges would be better qualified for rangers and 

 riflemen than denizens of the world of letters. But marriage 

 is decreed elsewhere, and mine had been already booked. 



" ' What's in a name ?' observed somebody. I assert 

 every thing. Will any body deny that ' Drusilla O'Shaugh- 

 nessey' was not sufficient to alarm any but a Shannonite ? 

 Such was the appellative of the lady, while her honoured 



