I never told Mrs.Coxe, for she can't bear to hear of my paying the least attention to the fair sex.
STRIKING A BALANCE.
Next door to us, in Portland Place, lived the Right Honorable the Earl of Kilblazes, of Kilmacrasy Castle, County Kildare, and his mother the Dowager Countess.

Lady Kilblazes had a daughter, Lady Juliana Matilda MacTurk, of the exact age of our dear Jemimarann; and a son, the Honorable Arthur Wellington Anglesea Blucher Bulow MacTurk, only ten months older than our boy Tug.
My darling Jemmy is a woman of spirit, and, as become her station, made every possible attempt to become acquainted with the Dowager Countess of Kilblazes, which her ladyship (because, forsooth, she was the daughter of the Minister, and Prince of Wales's great friend, the Earl of Portansherry) thought fit to reject.

I don't wonder at my Jemmy growing so angry with her, and determining, in every way, to put her ladyship down.

The Kilblazes' estate is not so large as the Tuggeridge property by two thousand a year at least; and so my wife, when our neighbors kept only two footmen, was quite authorized in having three; and she made it a point, as soon as ever the Kilblazes' carriage-and-pair came round, to have out her own carriage-and-four.
Well, our box was next to theirs at the Opera; only twice as big.
Whatever masters went to Lady Juliana, came to my Jemimarann; and what do you think Jemmy did?
she got her celebrated governess, Madame de Flicflac, away from the Countess, by offering a double salary.

It was quite a treasure, they said, to have Madame Flicflac: she had been (to support her father, the Count, when he emigrated) a FRENCH dancer at the ITALIAN Opera.