However, the cavalcade moved at length, every coachman being
accommodated with a hamper between his legs something larger than a
wheelbarrow; and the company being packed as closely as they
possibly could in the carriages, 'according,' as one married lady
observed, 'to the immemorial custom, which was half the diversion
of gipsy parties.' Thinking it very likely it might be (we have
never been able to discover the other half), we submitted to be
stowed away with a cheerful aspect, and were fortunate enough to
occupy one corner of a coach in which were one old lady, four young
ladies, and the renowned Mr. Balim the young ladies' young
gentleman.
We were no sooner fairly off, than the young ladies' young
gentleman hummed a fragment of an air, which induced a young lady
to inquire whether he had danced to that the night before. 'By
Heaven, then, I did,' replied the young gentleman, 'and with a
lovely heiress; a superb creature, with twenty thousand pounds.'
'You seem rather struck,' observed another young lady. ''Gad she
was a sweet creature,' returned the young gentleman, arranging his
hair. 'Of course SHE was struck too?' inquired the first young
lady. 'How can you ask, love?' interposed the second; 'could she
fail to be?' 'Well, honestly I think she was,' observed the young
gentleman. At this point of the dialogue, the young lady who had
spoken first, and who sat on the young gentleman's right, struck
him a severe blow on the arm with a rosebud, and said he was a vain
man-whereupon the young gentleman insisted on having the rosebud,
and the young lady appealing for help to the other young ladies, a
charming struggle ensued, terminating in the victory of the young
gentleman, and the capture of the rosebud.
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