who could combine a detestation of the Imperial Parliament with a
passionate loyalty to the sovereign.

There was a woman near us who 'remimbered the last time Her Noble
Highness come, thirty-nine years back,--glory be to God, thim was
the times!'--and who kept ejaculating, "She's the best woman in the
wurrld, bar none, and the most varchous faymale!" As her husband
made no reply, she was obliged in her excitement to thump him with
her umbrella and repeat, "The most varchous faymale, do you hear?"
At which he retorted, "Have conduct, woman; sure I've nothin' agin
it."

"Look at the size of her now," she went on, "sittin' in that grand
carriage, no bigger than me own Kitty, and always in the black, the
darlin'. Look at her, a widdy woman, raring that large and heavy
family of children; and how well she's married off her daughters
(more luck to her!), though to be sure they must have been well
fortuned! They do be sayin' she's come over because she's plazed
with seein' estated gintlemen lave iverything and go out and be shot
by thim bloody Boers, bad scran to thim! Sure if I had the sons,
sorra a wan but I'd lave go! Who's the iligant sojers in the silver
stays, Thady? Is it the Life Guards you're callin' thim?"

There were two soldiers' wives standing on the pavement near us, and
one of them showed a half-sovereign to the other, saying, "'Tis the
last day's airnin' iver I seen by him, Mrs. Muldoon, ma'am! Ah,
there's thim says for this war, an' there's thim says agin this war,
but Heaven lave Himself where he is, I says, for of all the ragin'
Turcomaniacs iver a misfortunate woman was curst with, Pat Brady, my
full private, he bates 'em all!"