THE WIDOW MARRIED.*

BY MRS. TROLLOPE.

CHAP. VIII.

OUR NATIVE LAND!"-THE HAPPINESS OF RETURNING TO IT-A VISIT TO THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, WITH A SKETCH OF FEMALE SUFFERINGS NOT UNUSUAL THERE-MISS O'DONAGOUGH'S FILIAL FEELINGS EXPLAINED.

AT length the boat was alongside, which was to convey my heroine, her husband, and daughter, to those dear dirty steps, beside the customhouse of London, the stumbling up which has occasioned joy and gladness to so many hearts. Our party had of course a considerable quantity of luggage to remove, and to this Mr. O'Donagough gave pretty nearly his whole attention; but somehow or other, his wife and daughter got very safely into the boat in the midst of it, and the whole freight, after the usual quantity of noise and bustle, was securely rowed to the landing-place and disembarked.

At last, Patty!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Donagough, on reaching the highest step, "here we are!-Oh! how glad I am that we have done with that beastly ship! If the sight of every rope in her did not make me as sick as a cat, I'll be hanged! Come, dear, get on; you must not begin staring yet. Bless you, child, this is nothing but the very nastiest outskirts of London. There is nothing here worth opening your handsome eyes upon, Patty. Come along, come along! There goes your father into the custom-house, as I take it, and we had best stop outside and watch the men bring up the rest of the goods. Lord! what a quantity they do carry to be sure! There goes my bandbox. If your father had not been a fool he might have contrived to smuggle that. But I never will forgive him if he does not bring it out again this minute. Passed or not passed as he calls it, have it I must and will."

To all this Patty made no answer whatever. She was too much occupied and pre-occupied to care for any thing her mamma could say. In fact, her thoughts were revolving with the regularity of a shuttlecock between two battledoors, from the kiss Jack had given her off Sheerness, to the busy throng moving in all directions round her.

After an interval, so short as to prove that Mr. O'Donagough was a practised and a skilful traveller, he was seen to emerge again from the portal of the custom-house; when his wife, who was stationed close to it, pounced upon his arm with genuine conjugal appropriation—a manœuvre, by the by, well described by Shakspeare, when he says,

"She arms her with the boldness of a wife"

and exclaimed, "What a time you have been, O'Donagough! where is the bandbox?-Why surely you have not come away without it? You know as well as I do, that I must have it, and I'll bet a thousand pounds that is exactly the reason you have left it!"

Continued from No. ccxxii., page 204.

July.-VOL. LVI. NO. CCXXIII.

Y

No, my dear, it was not, I assure you," he replied, with very business-like composure; "it was because the custom-house officers would not let me bring it on account of the sweetmeats.”

"Sweetmeats, Mr. O'Donagough!-Then, why did you not let them take out the sweetmeats? You know perfectly well, though now you pretend to look exactly as if you had never heard of ityou know that it is not the sweetmeats that I want, but my dressingbox. I declare to Heaven I would as soon have an owl look after my things!"

"Nonsense!" said Mr. O'Donagough, composedly, "I am going to call a coach for you. I shall tell the man to drive to the Saracen's Head, and there you must order dinner, and beds.-No; upon second thoughts, my dear, you had better order tea. It makes, as I well remember, a monstrous difference in the bill, and we may eat, you know, exactly as much cold meat as we like."

Here Mr. O'Donagough held up his finger to a hackney-coachman, as readily as if he had not been beyond reach of any such luxury for nearly fifteen years. But when, with a hand applied to his young daughter's elbow, he was in the very act of assisting her to mount the uncertain steps, he was startled by the voice of his lady, exclaiming, within an nch of his ear,

"How can you, O'Donagough, be such a fool as to make believe that you think I shall go off without my bandbox? I shall not stir a step without it, and that you know. What a thing it is to have a man belonging to one that can't look after such a trifle as that! But it is no matter. I can do it myself!" And with these words, Mrs. O'Donagough rushed into the custom-house with the aspect of a tigress seeking her young. There was the same thrusting forward of the lengthened neck-the same eager starting of the protruding eye. And who shall say that there was not the same throbbing emotion at her heart?

Mr. O'Donagough very improperly gave his daughter a look that seemed to say, "Did you ever!" and having desired her to sit quietly in the hackney-coach till they returned, he followed the wife of his bosom with long but deliberate strides, as she won her way to what appeared the most busy part of the vast edifice. He overtook her just in time to hear her say, with astonishing dignity, though panting for breath,

"Pray, sir, will you be pleased to inform me if it is here, that the passengers' luggage from the Atalanta has been deposited ?"

"The man who is now passing down the room, ma'am, can tell you,” was the reply. Away flew Mrs. O'Donagough after the individual thus indicated; but the man moved quickly, and it become speedily evident that she must raise her voice to overtake him.

"Will you tell me where the luggage from the Atalanta is stowed ?" screamed the flying lady, at the very highest pitch of her voice. But this effort also was in vain, for a multitude of other sounds blended themselves with the voice of Mrs. O'Donagough, and the official hurried on. Vexed, heated, weary, but more determined than ever to perform what she had undertaken, if only to prove how wretchedly inefficient in all such matters her husband must be, she continued to run on with all the velocity that a heavy cloak, and the ample volume of her own person would permit, till at length the man she was pursuing stopped, and at

the same instant her eye caught sight of the bandbox, the abduction of which from the boatman who brought them on shore, had caused her so much inquietude.

"This is it, this is the box I want, sir!" she exclaimed, extending her arm to seize her recovered treasure.

"By your leave, ma'am," said another official, taking hold of it with professional firmness, but perfect civility; "it is going this way."

"It can't go that way, sir-I must have it. I do assure you it is perfectly impossible for me to get into the coach without it, and I am quite confident, that as a gentleman, you can't refuse to let me take away such a trifle as this one bandbox."

"It has been looked into," said another "officer, and is crammed full of sweetmeats. It must pay duty."

"Dear me !-pay duty, sir, for a dressing-box? I don't care a straw for the sweetmeats, comparatively speaking, and Mr. O'Donagough must of course pay the duty, if he chooses to have them-all I ask is for my dressing-box, and I shall think it a most disgraceful thing to the English nation, if a lady is to have her very dressing-box taken from her the moment she puts her feet on English ground. I am sure the very savages themselves would know better! And what's more, I don't believe it is legal to seize it, for I have used the same and no other for years and years, and you may depend upon it that if there is any thing illegal in the matter, the thing won't pass without notice. My connexions are not in a rank of life to permit any thing of that kind. It may be all very well for common people to have their proproperty snatched out of their hands this way, but it won't do for the aunt of General Hubert !"

Mr. O'Donagough, who had by this time reached her side, stood with more nonchalance than was quite amiable, while his indignant wife thus exerted herself. Nay, some persons might even have suspected that he was base enough to quiz the vehement energy of her pleadings; for not only did he remain perfectly silent, but now and then exchanged such a look with the individual with whom she was contesting the legality of the transaction, as might have easily been construed into joining in the laugh against her. Fortunately for the preservation of the king's peace, on the spot sacred to the collection of his own customs, Mrs. O'Donagough was too completely occupied to be aware of this, and it was only when at length she ceased to speak, that she perceived her husband beside her.

"I do wonder, Mr. O'Donagough," she then began, "how you can stand there like a statue, without ever uttering a single syllable, good, bad, or indifferent! I do believe you are the only man in the whole civilized world who would let all the trouble of travelling fall upon his wife in this way. Pray sir, do make the people understand that the coach is waiting for me, and that it is impossible I should go without my dressing-box!"

"Why, my dear, you and I don't do business in the same way-Pray, sir, how long will it be before our things can be passed? These are the articles in this corner-just one dozen packages, great and small. When will they be looked over?"

"Within an hour, sir."

"Now then, my dear, make up your mind. Will you wait here

yourself one hour, till you can see the whole lot sent off? Or will you go on to the Saracen's Head, and leave me here to get it done? Or will you prefer my going with you, and returning here again after I have seen you and Martha safely lodged ?"

There is hardly any thing in the world so provoking, when one has worked oneself up to a considerable degree of energy, as to be made to perceive, as plainly as that two and two make four, that no energy at all was necessary. Mrs. O'Donagough would at that moment have given any thing short of her dressing-box, if without danger she could have bestowed upon her husband a good cuff; but she restrained herself, and only replied, "Oh! pray do not trouble yourself to go with us-I am sure I hope there is nothing going to happen in which you could do any good. Stay, if you like, and as long as you like, and let all the things be seized one after another, without putting out your finger to prevent it. I don't care a straw about it. It would be convenient, certainly, for me to get my dressing-box before I go, but as you do not choose to take any trouble about it, of course I must submit. Few gentlemen, I fancy would like to see their wives treated in this sort of way, particularly about a thing that I took out of England myself, years and years ago. However, I shall say no more about it. I know the transaction to be perfectly infamous in every way, and that's all I have to say, on the subject. General Hubert, or Lady Elizabeth either, will be able to tell me whether it will be worth my while to take any further notice of it. The importance of the thing itself is comparatively nothing-but no man of spirit, I presume, would choose that his wife should be treated with fraud and indignity-that's all I wish to observe."

This speech was intended for all within hearing, but it is doubtful whether any one besides her husband heard a syllable of it. There is, perhaps, no place in which the constitutional propensity of the gentler sex to relieve their full hearts in words, is endured with more unresisting passiveness than in scenes of active public business. The stream is generally permitted to flow on without let or hindrance; and if, as usually happens, no attention is paid to it, the obvious reason lies in the judicious earnestness of the functionaries to perform the lady's wishes, without pausing even to listen to their eloquent expression of them.

Mrs. O'Donagough waited a few seconds for an answer, but receiving none, either from her husband or any one else, she turned suddenly round upon a person actively engaged in the examination of a host of trunks just arrived from France, and said, "Am I to have my dressingbox, sir, or not?"

The man looked up at her for an instant, but pursued his employment without answering.

"What insufferable insolence !" she exclaimed, fronting round again to Mr. O'Donagough; "I am perfectly persuaded that there is no nation in the world where such conduct would be endured, except this! And I believe also," she continued somewhat in a lower voice, and preparing to leave the room,-" I believe also that there is not another man in existence, who would suffer his wife to be thus treated without resenting it."

"You will get these things in the corner looked over next, will you!" said Mr. O'Donagough with the most perfect composure.