“Hush, my dear Miss Dalton!” said Martha; “one word may wake her.” “I'd be a butterfly!” warbled the sick lady, in a low weak treble; while a smile of angelic beatitude beamed on her features. “Hush! be still!” said Martha, motioning the surrounders to silence. “What shall I do, Nina? Shall I go and speak to my Lady?” asked Kate. A significant shrug of the shoulders, more negative than affirmative, was the only answer. “I'd be a gossamer, and you'd be the King of Thebes,” said Mrs. Ricketts, addressing a tall footman, who stood ready to assist in carrying her. “Yes, madam,” said he, respectfully. “She's worse,” whispered Martha, gravely. “And we'll walk on the wall of China by moonlight, with Cleopatra and Mr. Cobden?” “Certainly, madam,” said the man, who felt the question too direct for evasion. “Has she been working slippers for the planet Ju-Ju-Jupiter yet?” asked Purvis, eagerly, as he entered the room, heated, and flushed from the weight of a portentous bag of colored wool. “No; not yet,” whispered Martha. “You may lift her now, gently very gently, and not a word.” And in strict obedience, the servants raised their fair burden, and bore her from the room, after Nina, who led the way with an air that betokened a more than common indifference to human suffering. “When she gets at Ju-Jupiter,” said Purvis to Kate, as they closed the procession, “it's a bad symptom; or when she fancies she 's Hec-Hec-Hec-Hec--” “Hecate?” “No; not Hec-Hecate, but Hecuba--Hecuba; then it's a month at least before she comes round.” “How dreadful!” said Kate. And certainly there was not a grain of hypocrisy in the fervor with which she uttered it. “I don't think she 'll go beyond the San-Sandwich Islands this time, however,” added he, consolingly, “Hush, Scroope!” cried Martha. And now they entered the small and exquisitely furnished dressing-room which was appropriated to Kate's use; within which, and opening upon a small orangery, stood her bedroom. Nina, who scrupulously obeyed every order of her young mistress, continued the while to exhibit a hundred petty signs of mute rebellion. “Lady Hester wishes to see Miss Dalton,” said a servant at the outer door. “Can you permit me for a moment?” asked Kate, in a tremor. “Oh, of course, my dear Miss Dalton; let there be no ceremony with us,” said Martha. “Your kindness makes us feel like old friends already.” “I feel-myself quite at home,” cried Scroope, whose head was not proof against so much wine; and then, turning to one of the servants, he added a mild request for the two bottles that were left on the drawing-room table. Martha happily, however, overheard and revoked the order. And now the various attendants withdrew, leaving the family to themselves.