In the mean time let us snatch a glance at the little dingy contemptible insect, the sable agitator, the Christophe of entomology, who has innocently created all this palpitation in tender bosoms, this distortion of beautiful features, this trembling of limbs, and this discord in voices the most musical. He stands a moment stupified, petrified with astonishment at the rush and the roar around him; recovering from his first surprise, he creeps a pace or two in blank perplexity; he wrestles with his fears--for frightened he is out of his little black wits, you may depend upon it--runs here and there, a few inches to the east, and then a few inches westward, to and fro like a bewildered thing; and then making up his mind, "away he cuts" as hard as he can pelt into the obscurest corner. The enemy out of sight, the boldest of the party, after a minute or two, ventures down and makes a desperate rush to the door; others soon follow this heroine's example; and when they reach the landing--there pale, though recent from the roasting jack, and peeping up from one of the lower stairs of the kitchen flight, they perceive the face of the cook--a face whose expression is half curiosity, half fear. Aspects of wonder and wo-begone alarm are discernible beyond, and fill up the picture of agitation. "Oh, cook! where have you been?" cry the pretty tremblers. "Oh, Miss! what _is_ the matter?" sighs the cook sentimentally, observing at the same time that "her heart beats that quick as she ain't sure she knows her own name when she hears it." "Oh, cook!" cries the least exhausted of the party, "here's a great--here's a great black beadle in the parlour!" On which a very small scream, and a pretty shudder at the recollection, pervade the assembly. "A black-beadle, Miss Higgins! _is that all_! Lauk, well that is disappineting; we thought as you was all a being murdered, and so we couldn't move, we was so frightened. Why, I minds a black-beadle no more nor--no more nor--no, that I don't! But if it had bin a hearwig, Miss Higgins!--ur-r-r-rh! now that's a ruptile as I never could abide!"