hopes, and schemes, with a
"whish" of heavy extinguishment. The cheeriest, sprightliest mortal in
the world could not have continued gay in her society. Mark Tapley
would have met his match in her, I'm certain.

Next to the demise of her lamented parent--which was indeed an after
consideration--Lady Dasher's marriage was the source and well-spring of
all her woes. She had espoused, as soon as she had a will of her own, a
handsome young gin distiller, who "ran" a large manufactory in Essex.
People said it was entirely a love match; but, whether that was the case
or no, all _I_ know is, that on changing the honoured name of
Planetree--the first Earl had been boot-black to the conquering Cromwell
in Ireland--for the base-born patronymic Dasher, all her troubles began.
Her noble relatives cut her dead in the first instance, as Dasher,
aspiring though he was, aspired a trifle too high. The connection was
never acknowledged; and his papa-in-law, utterly ignoring his entity,
never gave him the honour of an invitation to Ballybrogue Castle, the
ancestral seat of the Planetrees in Tipperary.

This was not the worst of it, either. Dasher, forgetting that
simplicity of his forefathers which had promoted his fortunes, learnt on
his marriage to launch out into unheard-of extravagances, spending his
hardly-gained substance in riotous living. He kept open house in town
and country, getting laughed at, en parenthese, by the toadies who
spunged upon him; failed; got into "the Gazette;" and?--died of a broken
heart. Poor Dasher!

On the death of her other half--it is problematical which half he was,
whether better or worse--Lady Dasher found herself left with a couple of
daughters and a few thousands, which her husband had taken care to
settle on her so as to be beyond the reach of his creditors. The
provision was ample to have enabled her to live in comfort, if she had
practised the slightest economy; but, never having learnt that species
of common sense, called "savoir faire," which is useful in every-day
life, Lady Dasher soon outran the constable. She then had to appeal to
her father, Earl Planetree, who, now that poor Dasher disgraced the
family escutcheon no longer by living, acknowledged her once more,
relieving her necessities; and when he, too, died, he bequeathed her a
fair income, on which, by dint of hard struggling, she contrived to
support existence and repine at her bitter lot.

She was in the habit of tellin