One day, about six months after I was in possession of the fortune, I heard a ring at the bell. There was something in the ring different from any I had ever heard before--a sort of sweet, modest tingling kind of a ring. I felt as if somebody was shaking my hand all the time; and, on looking back on the event, I think there must be something in mesmerism and every thing else--homoeopathy and the water cure included; for it was certainly quite unaccountable on ordinary principles--but so it was. The maid was very slow in answering the bell. There was another pull. The same mysterious effects--a sort of jump--a tremor as it were, not at all unpleasant, but very odd--so I went to the door myself; and there fixed on me, in the most extraordinary manner, were two of the blackest eyes I ever saw--illuminating cheeks of a dark yellow colour, and increasing the whiteness of the most snowy teeth--the brightest, glistenest, shiningest, teeth that can possibly be imagined. She wore--for I may as well tell you it was a woman--she wore a flowing white veil upon her head, the queerest petticoats, and funniest shoes--at that time I had not seen the Chinese Collection and thought it was Desdemona (whom I had seen Mr Kean put to death a few nights before) "walking" in some of Othello's clothes. What she said, or if she said any thing, I was too much astonished to make out; but she walked into my room, smiling with her wonderful teeth, and curtsying with the extraordinary petticoats down to the very floor--and calling me "Massa Sib." "My good woman," I said, "I am afraid you make a mistake. I don't know any one of the name of Sib;" but I checked myself, for I thought she perhaps mistook me--I wore prodigious whiskers at that time--for a gallant colonel, whose name begins with that euphonious syllable. "No, no--no colonel," she said; "me wants _you_--me no care for colonels." What could she possibly want with me? I had never seen the woman before, or any body like her, except a picture of the Queen of Sheba when she was on a visit to Solomon. Could this woman come from Sheba? Could she take me for--no, no--she couldn't possibly take me for Solomon. So I was quite non-plussed. "You no get no letter, Massa Sib, to tell you we was to come--eh?" A letter? a letter?--I had had a hundred and fifty letters, but put them all into a box. How was it possible for me to read such a number? and who did she mean by _us_? How many more of then were coming? "Massa Sib vill be so fond of him's babba--him vill"---- A dreadful thought came into my head--a conspiracy to extort money--a declaration at Bow Street--a weekly allowance. "Woman!" I said, "what, in heaven's name, do you mean by babba?" "Dee little babb; it is so pretty--so like him papa." "And whose baby is it? for I suppose it's a baby you mean, by your chatter about a babb." "Your's. Oh! you will so lubb it." "Mine? you detestable impostor, I never had such a thing in all my life."