womankind had intrusted him.

As for Mrs. Gashleigh, you might have heard her bawling over the house
the whole day long. That admirable woman was everywhere: in the kitchen
until the arrival of Truncheon, before whom she would not retreat
without a battle; on the stairs; in Fitzroy's dressing-room; and in
Fitzroy minor's nursery, to whom she gave a dose of her own composition,
while the nurse was sent out on a pretext to make purchases of garnish
for the dishes to be served for the little dinner. Garnish for the
dishes! As if the folks at Fubsby's could not garnish dishes better than
Gashleigh, with her stupid old-world devices of laurel-leaves, parsley,
and cut turnips! Why, there was not a dish served that day that was not
covered over with skewers, on which truffles, crayfish, mushrooms,
and forced-meat were impaled. When old Gashleigh went down with her
barbarian bunches of holly and greens to stick about the meats, even the
cook saw their incongruity, and, at Truncheon's orders, flung the whole
shrubbery into the dust-house, where, while poking about the premises,
you may be sure Mrs. G. saw it.

Every candle which was to be burned that night (including the tallow
candle, which she said was a good enough bed-light for Fitzroy)
she stuck into the candlesticks with her own hands, giving her own
high-shouldered plated candlesticks of the year 1798 the place of honor.
She upset all poor Rosa's floral arrangements, turning the nosegays
from one vase into the other without any pity, and was never tired of
beating, and pushing, and patting, and WHAPPING the curtain and sofa
draperies into shape in the little drawing-room.

In Fitz's own apartments she revelled with peculiar pleasure. It has
been described how she had sacked his study and pushed away his papers,