“And keep straight she ’ave, I will take my solemn hoath of it, though I’m her lawful mother.” “Lor! Mrs. Stubbs, you mustn’t take my words for more than meant,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she placed the tea-tray in front of her guests, “but Hannah, she do give me the squirms, there’s no denying of it, what with her ghosties and her woices, and now these gentlemen--till she’s a’most too much for me!” At the word “ghosties” Mrs. Stubbs put down her teacup, and said solemnly, “You don’t mean for to go to tell me, Mrs. Battleby, as she’s seen them shadders and things again!” “_Seen ’em!_ why, she’s allays on about ’em, till she makes my flesh creep. But I wouldn’t have writ to you, Mrs. Stubbs, if it ’adn’t been for the gentlemen upstairs--that is my hattic lodger Sig-nor Ricardo, and ’is friend Doctor Steinberg--which they arsks for leave to cure your gal of ’er seeing of things, which they calls highstrikes,--and gets ’er upstairs of evenings to sit with them, under pertence of physicking ’er, so the night before last I makes bold to listen at the door to see what they was a’doing with the gal, and I ’eard--well, Mrs. Stubbs, ma’am, I ’ardly likes to tell you _what_ I ’eard!” “But you must, ma’am, but you must!” exclaimed the other, eagerly, “I’ve come to Lunnon with this young man, a puppuss to ’ear all as you can tell us!” “Well! then, Mrs. Stubbs, I must tell you fust, as the Sig-nor kep’ one of ’is rooms locked, night and day, but arter ’e got ’old, as I may say, of Hannah, I considered it my dooty to see what they did for myself, and I got another key fitted, and unlocked the door!” “Which you did right, Mrs. Battleby!” agreed Mrs. Stubbs. “And what did I find, but the ’ole room was hung with black curtings--walls, floor and winder--and sich a ’orrid smell, something between musk and cockroaches! Thinks I to myself, this ain’t for no good, so I listens to them, as I says before, and it’s a mixture, Mrs. Stubbs--a mixture of gals and Sorcery and Magic and the Devil, that’s what it is, and I cannot ’ave it in my ’ouse. The Professor ’e must go, and so must Hannah, though I’m sorry to say it of a daughter of yours--but it’s right-down wickedness, and I won’t countenance it!” At this Joe Brushwood sprang to his feet. “I know what it is,” he exclaimed, fiercely. “Hannah’s been raising them sperrits again, which she promised me to have no more to do with ’em, and if that’s the case, it’s all over between us, for I won’t ’ave a sorceress for a wife, to bewitch me half my time,--not if I dies a bachelor!” “’Ush!” cried Mrs. Battleby, “’ere’s Hannah. Just put it to ’er, Mrs. Stubbs, ’ow she’s been employing ’er time with the Sig-nor and ’is friend, and judge for yourself!”