Leprechaun Songs️

Leprechaun Songs️ 1_st_, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. As dirty and disreputable as ever, Battersea, rolling his cap in his dirty hands, made his appearance on the threshold of the library, conducted by the disgusted footman. When the door was closed behind him, and he stood alone before those who were about to examine him, he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, blinked his bleared eyes, and blushed as with the shame of guilt through the sallow darkness of his skin. Jen, with the military instinct of command fully awakened within him, looked sternly at the feeble old creature, and questioned him sharply, as though he were talking to a soldier who had done wrong. On her part, Lady Meg left the most part of the examination to the major; but she listened with anxious looks and parted lips to every word which fell from the tramp's lips. The death of the man whom she had loved so deeply had inflicted terrible anguish upon her loving heart, and, as a tribute to his memory, she was anxious to punish his assassin. But at present, influenced by the views of the major, she began to waver in her opinion regarding the guilt of the weak-brained creature who stood trembling nervously at the doorway.,"Now, look here," he says, impressively: "I hope nobody is going to indulge in so much as a covert smile to-day." He glances severely at Nolly, who is already wreathed in smiles. "Because the Æsthetic won't have it. She wouldn't hear of it at any price. We must all be in tense! If you don't understand what that means, Mona, you had better learn at once. You are to be silent, rapt, lifted far above all the vulgar commonplaces of life. You may, if you like, go into a rapture over a colorless pebble, or shed tears of joy above a sickly lily; but avoid ordinary admiration.","I have had the honour, my lord," exclaimed the Admiral, "to serve under Howe, Duncan, and Sir Hyde Parker, but alas! I came into the world too soon to reflect even a little of the glory with which those who have had the unspeakable happiness to serve under your lordship have covered themselves.","What brings that old man here peering and mopping and mowing? Has he heard of your appointment? I wish he may not be hatching some scheme, planning some design to end this, your fortunate command, by arresting you unless you pay him up in full.","Very pretty indeed, and quite good taste and that. She's a Mrs. Lennox, and her husband is our master of the hounds. She is always quite correct in the matter of clothes." There is an awful reservation in her Grace's tone, which is quite lost upon Mona. "But she is by no means little in her own opinion, and in fact rather prides herself upon her—er—form generally," concludes the duchess, so far at a loss for a word as to be obliged to fall back upon slang.，He received two taps and sighed relievedly; then as his mother arose to bring the coffee-pot from the stove he felt three quick and distinct pressures and ducked his head just in time to miss a swinging, open-handed slap from Mrs. Wilson's heavy hand.，Mr Lawrence was extremely easy. There was nothing of the embarrassment in the presence of ladies which is often visible even in well-bred men who have fallen from their estate, and pass their days in liquor and in looking in and out of such haunts as "The Swan." Indeed, his well-governed behaviour had something of a pre-determined air as of a man who acts a part and with all the resolution of his soul means to carry it through, though he may be obstructed by physical pain or by mental distress.，The waterfall's faint drip,"Sir Nicholas has sent me an invitation for the 19th," he says, presently, when the silence has become unendurable.

"Are you not?" said Sarby, with a peculiar smile. "Remember what Etwald said about your life-in-death!","—wish you health, and love and mirth,,"Ah!" murmured Mrs. Dallas, casting a haggard look around. "All is lost.",Mrs. Shelly in her new bonnet with a gay little pansy on it, Miss Jinny in another bran new hat, made quite a festive appearance, and the great humor of them both and their sincere pleasure in being so important a part in the little home group gave an added zest to the evening's merry-making.,“Won’t be much chance,” put in Bob, “if they’ve been to the hut. But if they were going to leave me there without food or water, perhaps you can get ’em.”,"I never heard of that," said Sir William.,"Ah!" says Doatie, clasping her hands. "And——",“No; well,” came the answer.,Betty was thoroughly engrossed in her subject. Her story was entirely of birds and flowers and fairies. True, the pictures did not realize in their movements the lightning-like rapidity of “really truly” moving pictures, but they moved as fast as the young eyes that followed them could wish.,Only as Mrs. Geoffrey makes her final curtesy, and Geoffrey, with a laugh, stoops forward to kiss her lips instead of her hand, as acknowledgment of her earnest and very sweet performance, thereby declaring the same to have come to a timely end, do the new-comers dare to show themselves.,"Return to my house and see Etwald!","Ah! were you really there!" says Mona, growing at once bright and excited at the bare mention of her native land. At such moments she falls again unconsciously into the "thens," and "sures," and "ohs!" and "ahs!" of her Ireland..