necessarily on the wrong side of time and of punctuality. She came bowling
along, keeping up her fiery steeds to a sort of curvetting gallop, like one
deep in the science of the _manège_--now deranging the order of march of
the troops, by breaking through the ranks, in spite of the impertinent
remonstrances of the out-posts and videttes, at which she laughed, at once
to show her teeth and her power;--and now scattering the humble crowd,
"like chaff before the wind," as giving her horses the rein, she permitted
them to plunge head-long on, while skilfully flourishing her long whip, she
made on every side a preliminary clearance. Many among the multitude
announced her as the famous Kitty Cut-dash, and nodded knowingly as she
passed them; but the greater number detected in the beautiful charioteer,
the equally famous Albina Countess Knocklofty, the female chief of that
great oligarchical family, the Proudforts--a family on which the church
rained mitres, the state coronets, and the people--curses.

Beside her sat, or rather lounged, another dame of quality, bearing the
stamp of her class and caste as obviously, yet less deeply marked, than
her companion. More feminine in her air, more foreign in her dress and
entire bearing, her faultless form, and almost faultless face, had all the
advantages of the new democratic toilet of Paris, (adopted by its court,
when more important innovations were still fatally resisted;) and she
appeared in the Phoenix Park, dressed much in the same costume as Marie
Antoinette and her female favourites are described to have worn in the
gardens of Trianon, or in the bowers of St. Cloud,--to the horror of all
old _dames d'atours_, and all the partisans of the ancient regime of
whalebone and buckram! The chemise of transparent muslin, or _robe à la
Poliynae_, _chapeau de paille à la bergere_, tied down with a lilac
ribbon, with