CHAPTER V

'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.