She was sitting in a gracefully majestic attitude by the side of a small table on which a desk was placed. Mrs. Siddons never unbent for a moment in private life. She assumed majestic attitudes in the presence of the lodging-house servant, and spoke in a tragic contralto to the linen-draper's apprentice. She turned her lovely eyes upon Dionysius Hogan as he stood smirking and bowing at the door. There was a vista of tragedy in the delivery of the two words-- “Well, sir?” It took him some moments to recover from the effect the words produced upon him. He cleared his throat--it was somewhat husky--and with an artificial smirk he piped out: “Madam--ah, my charmer, I have rushed to clasp my goddess to my bosom! Ah, fair creature, who could resist your appeal?” He advanced in the mincing gait of the Macaronis. She sprang to her feet. She pointed an eloquent forefinger at a spot on the floor directly in front of him. “Wretch,” she cried, “advance a step at your peril!” Her eyes were flashing, and her lips were apart. His mincing ceased abruptly; and only the ghost of a smirk remained upon his patched and painted face. It was in a very fluty falsetto that he said: “Ah, I see my charmer wants to be wooed. But why should Amanda reproach her Strephon for but obeying her behests? Wherefore so coy, dear nymph? Let these loving arms--” “Madman--wretch--” “Nay, chide me not, dear one. 'T is but the ardour of my passion that bids me clasp thee, the fairest of Hebe's train. We shall fly together to some retreat--far from the distractions--” “Oh, the man is mad--mad!” cried the lady, retreating a step or two as he advanced. “Only mad with the ardour of my passion,” whispered Dionysius. “Oh, heaven! that I should live to hear such words spoken in my presence!” cried Mrs. Siddons, with her hands clasped in passionate appeal to a smiling portrait of the landlady's husband that hung over the fireplace. Then she turned upon Dionysius and looked at him. Her eyes blazed. Their fire consumed the unfortunate man on whom they rested. He felt himself shrivelled up and become crisp as an autumn leaf. He certainly trembled like one, as a terrible voice, but no louder than a whisper, sounded in his ears: “Are you a human being or the monster of a dream, that you dare to speak such words in my hearing? What wretch are you that fancies that Sarah Siddons may be addressed by such as you, and in language that is an insult to a pure wife and mother. I am Sarah Siddons, sir! I am a wife who holds her husband's honour dearer than life itself--I am a mother who will never cause a blush of shame to mantle the brow of one of her children. Wretch, insulter, why are mine eyes not basilisks, with death in their glance to such as you?” Down went Dionysius on his knees before that terrible figure that stretched out wild quivering hands above his head. Such gestures as hers would have fitted the stage of Drury Lane. In the lodging-house parlour they were overwhelming.