'La, not at all,' said the dame. 'We shall have none but old Sir Charles Grandison, and his lady, Miss Harriet Byron, that was;--old Mr. Mortimer Delville, and his lady, Miss Cecilia, that was;--and old Lord Mortimer, and his lady, Miss Amanda, that was.' 'Can it be possible?' cried I. 'Why these are all heroes and heroines!' 'Pon my conversation, and by my fig, and as I am a true maiden, so they are,' said she; 'for my lord scorns any other sort of varment. And we shall have such tickling and pinching; and fircumdandying, and cherrybrandying, and the genteel poison of bad wine; and the warder blowing his horn, and the baron in his scowered armour, and I in a coif plaited high with ribbons all about it, and in the most rustling silk I have. And Philip, the butler, meets me in the dark. "Oddsboddikins," says he (for that is his pet oath), "mayhap I should know the voice of that silk?" "Oddspittikins," says I, "peradventure thou should'st;" and then he catches me round the neck, and----' 'There, there!' cried I, 'you distract me.' 'Marry come up!' muttered she. 'Some people think some people--Marry come up, quotha!' And she flounced out of the room. I sat down to breakfast, astonished at what I had just heard. Harriet Byron, Cecilia, Amanda, and their respective consorts, all alive and well! Oh, could I get but one glimpse of them, speak ten words with them, I should die content. I pictured them to myself, adorned with all the venerable loveliness of a virtuous old age,--even in greyness engaging, even in wrinkles interesting. Hand in hand they walk down the gentle slope of life, and often pause to look back upon the scenes that they have passed--the happy vale of their childhood, the turretted castle, the cloistered monastery. This reverie was interrupted by the return of Dame Ursulina. 'The baron,' said she, 'has just gone off to London; we think either for the purpose of consulting physicians about his periodical madness, or of advising government to propose a peace with France. So my young mistress, the Lady Sympathina, is anxious to visit you during his absence,--as he prohibited her;--and she has sent me to request that you will honor her with your permission.' 'Tell her I shall be most happy to see and to solace a lady of her miseries,' answered I. 'And I trust we shall swear an eternal friendship when we meet.' 'Friendship,' said the dame, 'is the soft soother of human cares. O, to see two fair females sobbing respondent, while their blue eyes shine through their tears like hyacinths bathed in the dews of the morning!' 'Why, dame,' cried I, 'how did you manage to pick up such a charming sentiment, and such elegant language?' 'Marry come up!' said she, 'I havn't lived, not I, not with heroines, not for nothing. Marry come up, quotha!' And this frumpish old woman sailed out of the chamber in a great fume.