She was a fine strapping young woman enough, dressed half and half between a fine lady and a servantmaid; but as sly-looking a baggage as you could select from an assortment of gypseys; and unless her face belied her, quite capable of scratching a Cock Lane ghost. Indeed something came across me that I had seen her before; and if memory don’t deceive, it was at some private theatricals contrary to law. For certain she could keep her countenance; for if the outlandish figure of a doctor, with his queer faces, had postured, and pawed, and poked towards _me_, with his fingers, for all the world like the old game of “My grandmother sends you a staff, and you’re neither to smile nor to laugh,” as he did to her, I should have bursted, to a dead certainty; instead of going off, as she did, into an easy sleep. As soon as she was sound, the Count turned round to me and the company with his broken English--“Ladies and gentlemens,” says he, “look here at dis yoong maidens, Mizz Charlot Ann Elizabet Martin”--for that is his way of talking. “Wid my magnetismuses I tro her into von state of sombamboozleism”--or something to that effect. “Mizz Charlot Ann, dou art a slip.” “As fast as a church, Mister Count,” says she, talking and hearing as easy as broad awake. “Ferry goot,” says he. “Now I take dis boke,--Missis Glasse Cokery,--and I shall make de maidens read som little of him wid her back. Dere he is bytween her sholders. Mizz Charlot Ann, what you see now mit your eyes turned de wrong way for to look?” “Why, then,” says she, “Mr. Count, I see quite plain a T, and an O. Then comes R, and O, and S, and T--and the next word is H, and A, and I, and R.” “Ferry goot,” tries the Count over again. “Dat is to rost de hare. Ladies and gentlemens, you all here? As Gott is my shudge, so is here in de boke. Now den, Mizz Charlot Ann, vons more. Vot you taste in your mouse?” “Why, then, Master,” says Charlotte Ann, “as sure as fate, I taste sweet herbs chopped up small!” “Ferry goot indeed!--bot what mor by sides de sweet herrubs?” “Why,” says she, “it’s a relish of salt, and pepper, and mace,--and, let me see--there’s a flavour of currant jelly.” “Besser and besser!” cries the Count. “Ladies and gentlemens, are not dese voonderfools? You shall see every wart of it in de print. Mizz Charlot Ann, vot you feel now?” “Lawk a mercy, Mister Count,” says she, “there’s a sort of stuffy feel, so there is, in my inside!” “Yaw! like van fool belly! Ferry goot! Now you feel vot?” “Feel! Mister Count?” says she--“why I don’t feel nothing at all--the stuffiness is gone clean away!” “Yaw, my shild!” says he. “Dat is by cause I take avay de cokery boke from your two sholders. Ladies and gentlemens, dese is grand powers of magnetismus! Ach himmel! As Hamlet say, dere is more in our philosofies dan dere is in de heaven or de earth! Our mutter Nature is so fond to hide her face! Bot von adept, so as me, can lift up a whale!” [Illustration: SLEEPING DRAUGHTS.]