mind, and it will do very well. That, and her never talking to one
confi_dan_tially, or trusting one with the least bit of her secrets,
is the thing I can't put up with from Miss Nugent; and Miss Broadhurst
holding the pins to me, as much as to say, do your business, Petito,
and don't talk.--Now, that's so impertinent, as if one wasn't the same
flesh and blood, and had not as good a right to talk of every thing,
and hear of every thing, as themselves. And Mrs. Broadhurst, too,
cabinet-councilling with my lady, and pursing up her city mouth, when
I come in, and turning off the discourse to snuff, forsooth; as if I
was an ignoramus, to think they closeted themselves to talk of snuff.
Now, I think a lady of quality's woman has as good a right to be
trusted with her lady's secrets as with her jewels; and if my Lady
Clonbrony was a real lady of quality, she'd know that, and consider
the one as much my paraphernalia as the other. So I shall tell my lady
to-night, as I always do when she vexes me, that I never lived in an
Irish family before, and don't know the ways of it--then she'll tell
me she was born in Hoxfordshire--then I shall say, with my saucy look,
'Oh, was you, my lady--I always forget that you was an Englishwoman:'
then may be she'll say, 'Forget! you forget yourself strangely,
Petito.' Then I shall say, with a great deal of dignity, 'If your
ladyship thinks so, my lady, I'd better go.' And I'd desire no better
than that she would take me at my word; for my Lady Dashfort's is a
much better place, I'm told, and she's dying to have me, I know."

And having formed this resolution, Petito concluded her apparently
interminable soliloquy, and went with my lord's gentleman into the
antechamber, to hear the concert, and give her judgment on every
thing: as she peeped in through the vista of heads into the Apollo
saloon--for to-night the Alhambra was transformed into the Apollo
saloon--she saw that whilst the company, rank behind rank, in close