“O! Hannah--my lady--don’t you go for to do it!” cried Mrs. Battleby, “for what’s the good of being a duchess, if the Devil ’as got hold of you! Better remain as you are--a plain markiness! O! I ’ad ’oped as you’d given it all up and lived quiet and sober, like a married woman should!” “O! that would never do!” replied Hannah, “Why! do you know, Mrs. Battleby, as it’s the best thing I’ve got! The Baron says I’m the grandest medium in the land, and there ain’t another as can make the sperrits walk out so soon, and so nateral like! His friends is all mad to meet me, and I’m to go to ’is ’ouse next week, and sit for the Russian Ambassador, and the Duke of Standingstone, and two foreign Princes! Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been so quick to take the Markiss, for I should ’ave ’ad no end of chances, if I ’adn’t been a married lady!” “Ah! well! I ’opes it will all end satisfactory,” sighed Mrs. Battleby, “but it don’t seem right to me! Sperrits is sperrits all the world over, which we’re told not to meddle with in holy Scriptur, and I should never be surprised to ’ear as they’d taken you away with ’orns and a tail and a smell of brimstone!” “I ain’t afeared of that!” said Hannah, “the sperrits are more afraid of me than I am of them!” “Of _you_--who used to shriek if you saw ’em!” replied her companion, incredulously. “I know! but they says as use is second natur. Anyways, I don’t mind ’em one pin now! The Doctor says they ’ave seen the most wonderfullest things through me--his dead patients and others--and that if anythink ’appened to the Markiss, my mediumship would be worth its weight in gold. So I’m not going to throw it away--you bet!” “O! well! and I’m not the one to blame yer. We must all look arter ourselves in this world. But ’ow improved you are in your speaking, my dear! ’Ave you been to school since the Sig-nor married you?” “Am I improved?” demanded Hannah, with a look of surprise; “I don’t see any difference myself! P’r’aps it’s talking so much with my ’usband--not that the Markiss is a great talker, but still I don’t hear anyone else.” “You are altered in many ways,” continued the landlady, thoughtfully, “you’ve lost the scared look you used to ’ave on your face, and the dull look too, I may say, for we never considered you over-bright, you know, Hannah! But now--I ain’t good at describing--but you seem to me to have wakened up, as if you’d seen a lot of the world and its ways. And it’s improved you, Hannah--wonderful!” “I’m glad of that,” replied the markiness, “for now that I am a lady, I has to speak like one. Well! I’ll say good-night to you now, Mrs. Battleby, for I must be going ’ome! But I thought, as you’d known the Markiss for so long, you’d like to hear the news, and that we’re all so ’appy together!” Hannah had risen to go, but Mrs. Battleby detained her for a moment.