“I'd be a gossamer, and you'd be the King of Thebes,” said Mrs. Ricketts, addressing a tall footman, who stood ready to assist in carrying her.
“Yes, madam,” said he, respectfully.
“She's worse,” whispered Martha, gravely.
“And we'll walk on the wall of China by moonlight, with Cleopatra and Mr. Cobden?”
“Certainly, madam,” said the man, who felt the question too direct for evasion.
“Has she been working slippers for the planet Ju-Ju-Jupiter yet?” asked Purvis, eagerly, as he entered the room, heated, and flushed from the weight of a portentous bag of colored wool.
“No; not yet,” whispered Martha. “You may lift her now, gently very gently, and not a word.”
And in strict obedience, the servants raised their fair burden, and bore her from the room, after Nina, who led the way with an air that betokened a more than common indifference to human suffering.
“When she gets at Ju-Jupiter,” said Purvis to Kate, as they closed the procession, “it's a bad symptom; or when she fancies she 's Hec-Hec-Hec-Hec—”
“Hecate?”