'Tis she!--POPE.
O Vous!--TELEMACHUS.
All hail!--MACBETH.
AN EXTRAORDINARY RENCONTRE.--PATHETIC REPARTEES.--NATURAL
CONSEQUENCES RESULTING FROM AN EXCESS IN SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS.
--TERRIFIC NONSENSE TALKED BY TWO MANIACS.
One night as Lord Theodore, on his return from the theatre, was
passing along a dark alley, he perceived a candle lighting in a
small window, on the ground-floor of a deciduous hovel.
An indescribable sensation, an unaccountable something, whispered
to him, in still, small accents, 'peep through the pane.' He did
so; but what were his emotions, when he beheld--whom? Why the very
young lady that he had left for dead in the forest--his
Hysterica!!!
She was clearstarching in a dimity bedgown.
He sleeked his eyebrows with his finger, then flung open the sash,
and stood before her.
'_Ah, ma belle Amie!_' cried he. 'So I have caught you at last. I
really thought you were dead.'
'I am dead to love and to hope!' said she.
'O ye powers!' cried he, making a blow at his forehead.
'There are many kinds of powers,' said she carelessly: 'perhaps you
now mean the powers of impudence, Mr.--I beg pardon--Lord Theodore
De Willoughby, I believe.'
'I believe so,' retorted he, 'Mrs.--or rather Lady
Hys--Hys--Hys.'--
'Hiss away, my lord!' exclaimed the sensitive girl, and fainted.
Lord Theodore rushed at a bottle that stood on the dresser, and
poured half a pint of it into her mouth; but perceiving by the
colour that it was not water, he put it to his lips;--it was
brandy. In a paroxysm of despair he swallowed the contents; and at
the same moment Hysterica woke from her fainting-fit, in a high
delirium.
'What have you done to me?' stammered she. 'Oh! I am lost.' 'What!'
exclaimed the youth, who had also got a brain-fever; 'after my
preserving you in brandy?' 'I am happy to hear it,' lisped she;
'and every thing round me seems to be happy, for every thing round
me seems to be dancing!'
Both now began singing, with dreadful facetiousness; he, 'fill the
bowl,' and she, 'drink to me only.'
At length they sang themselves asleep.