"Ah! my poor Chips? He sailed for India a month ago. Such a leave-taking as we had! It, would have melted an Amazon. I assure you I very nearly wept; and I certainly kissed him. So did Harriet--twice--who was on the spot doing propriety. I thought that was taking an unfair advantage of me. And he is to shoot every tiger in Bengal, and to send me the skins. At long last I shall be embarrassed by my riches." After dinner, we are all assembled in the drawing-room, we become aware of some noise that strongly resembles a scuffle in the hall. It is followed by the sudden opening of the door, and the apparition of Martha on the threshold, flushed with victory, and with her bonnet artistically awry. Seeing me lying on the sofa, she loses all presence of mind (of which her stock was always small), and, regardless of beholders, rushes forward, and precipitates herself at my feet. "Oh, Miss Phyllis! Oh, ma'am!" says she, with a lamentable sniff and a nice forgetfulness of manners, as she takes note of my leanness, "oh, Miss Phyllis! my dear, my dear! How terrible bad you do look, to be shore!" Here she falls to kissing and to weeping over my hand, finally breaking into loud sobs. The old spinster appellation, suiting as it does my present position so neatly--albeit unmeant by my faithful handmaiden--raises within me a grim sense of amusement. I check it, however, as being unfit for present company. "Nonsense, Martha," I say, kindly, "don't go on like that. I dare say, now you have come to take care of me, I shall recover my beauty. I shall feel quite insulted if you cry over me any more." "Martha, come with me," says Bebe, with authority; and Martha, being, like all the good ones of her class, instinctively obedient, rises, and leaves the room close at Miss Beatoun's heels. "What a dreadful habit those people have got of giving way to their feelings on every possible occasion!" exclaims the usually serene Harriet, wrathfully, as the door closes, coming to my side to shake up my pillows and get rid of her irritation.--- "Really, yes, it is very distressing," chimes in Dora, from the depths of the large arm-chair, in which her small figure is almost lost; she speaks as it behoves a pretty baroness to speak, who now for the first, time is made aware of some of the grosser habits of the lower classes. Her tone is perfect--having just the correct amount of surprise and disapproval--no more, "And yet that woman always used to strike me as being such a very properly conducted sort of person." "Don't be so hard on her Harry," say I. "Remember she has known me all my life, and has had the care of me ever since I was an infant. She loves me; do not condemn her for that love."