"It'll be the top of the notch, this one," sez the chap, "they're a goin to be awful partickler who they invite--nothing but the raly genteel who get tickets, I promise 'em." Miss Josephine Burgess puckered up her mouth, and said "she didn't know: she was afeard she might meet with some of the working classes--she----" "Don't say no--it'll break my heart, it will sartinly," sez the lovyer. "Don't drive me to takin pison on your account--oh don't." Miss Josephine kinder started up--gave a sort of a scream--and said she wouldn't drive the 'pothecary to taking pison, and that she would go the ball. The minit she said that the leetle chap went right off into a fit of the dreadful suz: he slumped right down on his marrow bones, and begun to nibble away like all natur at the four little fingers, that stuck out of Miss Josephine Burgess's right hand mit. "Oh, say only jest one thing more, and I shall be so happy, I shall want to jump out of my skin," sez he, all in a twitteration. "Oh, dear me, what do you mean? I swanny, I'm all in a fluster," sez she. "Here, down on my knees, I ask, I entreat, I conjure, most beautiful of wimmen folks," sez he, "that you be my partner, not only at the ball, but through this ere mortal life, that is a stretching before us like a great paster lot covered over with tansey, wild rhubarb and sage roots all in bloom--don't blush, my angel, but speak!" Now Miss Josephine knew as well as could be, that it was the fashion to feel dreadfully at sich times--to get up a caniption fit, or any how to give right up and set kivered all over with blushes; but the bit of cotton wool that she used always to put on her blushes with, was tucked away in the top of her stocking, and she couldn't get at it handy without being seen. So she puckered up her mouth and looked as if she had just lost her granny. "Give me _one_ word of hope, now du," sez the anxious 'pothecary, a squeezing the milliner's hand, mit and all, between both of his, and a twisting his head a one side, and a rolling up his eyes, like a hen that's jest done drinking. "Oh dear suz, what _can_ I answer?" sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a wriggling her shoulders and kivering up her face with one hand, "I never felt so in all my life--dear me." "Don't spurn me away from these ere leetle feet--nobody will ever love you so agin," sez the anxious chap, and with that he struck his hand sort of fierce agin his heart, that was floundering away under his yaller vest like a duck in a mud-puddle. "Git up--oh du," sez Miss Josephine, catching a sly peek at the 'pothecary, through her fingers. "One word of hope," sez the chap, a giving his bosom another tarnal dig; "say that you will be mine." "I'll think about it," sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a sighing through her fingers.