Miscellanies Prose and Verse - 1885 Author:William Maginn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 3Bob Burfce's Duel witb Ensign Braog of tbe 48tb. CHAPTER I. HOW BOB WAS IN LOVE WITH MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA. " When the 48th were quartered in Mallow... more » I was there on a visit to one of the Purcells who abound in that part of the world, and, being some sixteen or seventeen years younger than I am now, thought I might as well fall in love with Miss Theodosia Macnamara. She was a fine grown girl, full of flesh and blood, rose five foot nine at least when shod, had many excellent points, and stepped out slappingly upon her pasterns. She was somewhat of a roarer, it must be admitted, for you could hear her from one end of the Walk to the other; and I am told that, as she has grown somewhat aged, she shows symptoms of vice; but I knew nothing of the latter, and did not mind the former, because I never had a fancy for your nimini- pimini young ladies, with their mouths squeezed into the shape and dimensions of a needle's eye. I always suspect such damsels as having a very portentous design against mankind in general. "She was at Mallow for the sake of the Spa, it being understood that she was consumptive, though I'll answer for it her lungs were not touched; and I never saw any signs of consumption about her, except at meal times, when her consumption was undoubtedly great. However, her mother, a very nice middle-aged woman—she was of the O'Regans of the West, and a perfect lady in her manners, VOL. II. K with a very remarkable red nose, which she attributed to a cold which had settled in that part, and which cold she was always endeavouring to cure with various balsamic preparations taken inwardly—maintained that her poor chicken, as she called her, was very delicate, and required the air and water of Mallow to cure her. Theodosia (she was so named after some of the L...« less