“DO go now, you provoking thing, you!” continued Miss C. to Mr. Walker; “I wish to hear the hoverture, and it's six o'clock now, and we shall never be done against then:” but the way in which Morgiana said “DO go,” clearly indicated “don't” to the perspicacious mind of Mr. Walker.
“Perhaps you 'ad better go,” continued Mr. Eglantine, joining in this sentiment, and being, in truth, somewhat uneasy at the admiration which his “swell friend” excited.
“I'll see you hanged first, Eggy my boy! Go I won't, until these ladies have had their hair dressed: didn't you yourself tell me that Miss Crump's was the most beautiful hair in Europe? And do you think that I'll go away without seeing it? No, here I stay.”
“You naughty wicked odious provoking man!” said Miss Crump. But, at the same time, she took off her bonnet, and placed it on one of the side candlesticks of Mr. Eglantine's glass (it was a black-velvet bonnet, trimmed with sham lace, and with a wreath of nasturtiums, convolvuluses, and wallflowers within), and then said, “Give me the peignoir, Mr. Archibald, if you please;” and Eglantine, who would do anything for her when she called him Archibald, immediately produced that garment, and wrapped round the delicate shoulders of the lady, who, removing a sham gold chain which she wore on her forehead, two brass hair-combs set with glass rubies, and the comb which kept her back hair together—removing them, I say, and turning her great eyes towards the stranger, and giving her head a shake, down let tumble such a flood of shining waving heavy glossy jetty hair, as would have done Mr. Rowland's heart good to see. It tumbled down Miss Morgiana's back, and it tumbled over her shoulders, it tumbled over the chair on which she sat, and from the midst of it her jolly bright-eyed rosy face beamed out with a triumphant smile, which said, “A'n't I now the most angelic being you ever saw?”
“By Heaven! it's the most beautiful thing I ever saw!” cried Mr. Walker, with undisguised admiration.
“ISN'T it?” said Mrs. Crump, who made her daughter's triumph her own. “Heigho! when I acted at 'The Wells' in 1820, before that dear girl was born, I had such a head of hair as that, to a shade, sir, to a shade. They called me Ravenswing on account of it. I lost my head of hair when that dear child was born, and I often say to her, 'Morgiana, you came into the world to rob your mother of her 'air.' Were you ever at 'The Wells,' sir, in 1820? Perhaps you recollect Miss Delancy? I am that Miss Delancy. Perhaps you recollect,—
“'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink,
By the light of the star,
On the blue river's brink,
I heard a guitar.
“'I heard a guitar,
On the blue waters clear,
And knew by its mu-u-sic,
That Selim was near!'
You remember that in the 'Bagdad Bells'? Fatima, Delancy; Selim, Benlomond (his real name was Bunnion: and he failed, poor fellow, in the public line afterwards). It was done to the tambourine, and dancing between each verse,—
“'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink,
How the soft music swells,
And I hear the soft clink
Of the minaret bells!
“'Tink-a—'”
“Oh!” here cried Miss Crump, as if in exceeding pain (and whether Mr. Eglantine had twitched, pulled, or hurt any one individual hair of that lovely head I don't know)—“Oh, you are killing me, Mr. Eglantine!”