"You will make acquaintance with the regiment there.
O'Dowd goes in command of the regiment, and Peggy goes in command
But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment of Mrs. O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung open, and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by a couple of officers of Ours, entered the room.
"Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time.
Present me, Garge, my dear fellow, to your lady.
Madam, I'm deloighted to see ye; and to present to you me husband, Meejor O'Dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit grasped Amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew at once that the lady was before her whom her husband had so often laughed at.
"You've often heard of me from that husband of yours," said the lady, with great vivacity.
"You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the Major.
Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."
"And small good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd replied; adding that "George was a wicked divvle."
"That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look knowing, at which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd, with a tap of her whip, told the Major to be quiet; and then requested to be presented in form to Mrs. Captain Osborne.
"This, my dear," said George with great gravity, "is my very good, kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta, otherwise called Peggy."
"Faith, you're right," interposed the Major.
"Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael O'Dowd, of our regiment, and daughter of Fitzjurld Ber'sford de Burgo Malony of Glenmalony, County Kildare."
"And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm superiority.
"And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major whispered.
"'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady said; and the Major assented to this as to every other proposition which was made generally in company.
Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quarter of the world, and had paid for every step in his profession by some more than equivalent act of daring and gallantry, was the most modest, silent, sheep-faced and meek of little men, and as obedient to his wife as if he had been her tay-boy.
At the mess-table he sat silently, and drank a great deal.
When full of liquor, he reeled silently home.
When he spoke, it was to agree with everybody on every conceivable point; and he passed through life in perfect ease and good-humour.
The hottest suns of India never heated his temper; and the Walcheren ague never shook it.
He walked up to a battery with just as much indifference as to a dinner-table; had dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and appetite; and had an old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of O'Dowdstown indeed, whom he had never disobeyed but when he ran away and enlisted, and when he persisted in marrying that odious Peggy Malony.
Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the noble house of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her own cousin, was of the mother's side, and so had not the inestimable advantage of being allied to the Malonys, whom she believed to be the most famous family in the world.
Having tried nine seasons at Dublin and two at Bath and Cheltenham, and not finding a partner for life, Miss Malony ordered her cousin Mick to marry her when she was about thirty-three years of age; and the honest fellow obeying, carried her off to the West Indies, to preside over the ladies of the --th regiment, into which he had just exchanged.
Before Mrs. O'Dowd was half an hour in Amelia's (or indeed in anybody else's) company, this amiable lady told all her birth and pedigree to her new friend.
"My dear," said she, good-naturedly, "it was my intention that Garge should be a brother of my own, and my sister Glorvina would have suited him entirely.
But as bygones are bygones, and he was engaged to yourself, why, I'm determined to take you as a sister instead, and to look upon you as such, and to love you as one of the family.
Faith, you've got such a nice good-natured face and way widg you, that I'm sure we'll agree; and that you'll be an addition to our family anyway."
"'Deed and she will," said O'Dowd, with an approving air, and Amelia felt herself not a little amused and grateful to be thus suddenly introduced to so large a party of relations.
"We're all good fellows here," the Major's lady continued.
"There's not a regiment in the service where you'll find a more united society nor a more agreeable mess- room.
There's no quarrelling, bickering, slandthering, nor small talk amongst us.
We all love each other."
"Especially Mrs. Magenis," said George, laughing.
"Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though her treatment of me would bring me gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."
"And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy, my dear," the Major cried.
"Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby.
Them husbands are always in the way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as for my Mick, I often tell him he should never open his mouth but to give the word of command, or to put meat and drink into it.
I'll tell you about the regiment, and warn you when we're alone.
Introduce me to your brother now; sure he's a mighty fine man, and reminds me of me cousin, Dan Malony (Malony of Ballymalony, my dear, you know who mar'ied Ophalia Scully, of Oystherstown, own cousin to Lord Poldoody).
Mr. Sedley, sir, I'm deloighted to be made known te ye.
I suppose you'll dine at the mess to-day. (Mind that divvle of a docther, Mick, and whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me party this evening.)"
"It's the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love," interposed the Major, "but we'll easy get a card for Mr. Sedley."
"Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia. I forgot to introjuice him to ye). Run in a hurry, with Mrs. Major O'Dowd's compliments to Colonel Tavish, and Captain Osborne has brought his brothernlaw down, and will bring him to the 150th mess at five o'clock sharp --when you and I, my dear, will take a snack here, if you like."
Before Mrs. O'Dowd's speech was concluded, the young Ensign was trotting downstairs on his commission.
"Obedience is the soul of the army.
We will go to our duty while Mrs. O'Dowd will stay and enlighten you, Emmy," Captain Osborne said; and the two gentlemen, taking each a wing of the Major, walked out with that officer, grinning at each other over his head.
And, now having her new friend to herself, the impetuous Mrs: O'Dowd proceeded to pour out such a quantity of information as no poor little woman's memory could ever tax itself to bear.
She told Amelia a thousand particulars relative to the very numerous family of which the amazed young lady found herself a member.