Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet’s scritch:
For what can ail the mastiff bitch?”
‘Whatever it may be that ails the bitch, the ladies pass forward, and take off their shoes, and tread softly all the way up stairs, as Christabel observes that her father is a bad sleeper. At last, however, they do arrive at the bed-room, and comfort themselves with a dram of some home-made liquor, which proves to be very old; for it was made by Lady C.’s mother; and when her new friend asks if she thinks the old lady will take her part, she answers, that this is out of the question, in as much as she happened to die in childbed of her. The mention of the old lady, however, gives occasion to the following pathetic couplet.—Christabel says,
“O mother dear, that thou wert here!
I would, said Geraldine, she were!”
‘A very mysterious conversation next takes place between Lady Geraldine and the old gentlewoman’s ghost, which proving extremely fatiguing to her, she again has recourse to the bottle—and with excellent effect, as appears by these lines.
“Again the wild-flower wine she drank;
Her fair large eyes ’gan glitter bright,
And from the floor whereon she sank,