THE SIX OF SPADES. 71 



internal powers ; and she only hoped he might not 

 some day find himself where the worm never should 

 be squenched. This and much additional rubbish 

 she discharged with great volubility, and then, imi- 

 tating her mistress, retired with dignity. 



But distinct and separate, as the orators them- 

 selves, were the effects of the two orations. Miss 

 Susan's speech left her hearer sad, ruthfully penitent 

 concerning the blackbirds, and as thoroughly ashamed 

 of the subject, as the Ancient Mariner must have been 

 of the albatross hung about his neck. Mrs. V.'s 

 remarks appeared, on the contrary, the rather to 

 cheer and comfort him ; and he so far regained his 

 animal spirits as to wink, when she finished, to an 

 attendant robin (presiding, like an Emperor, over his 

 Diet of Worms, hard by), and pointing with his 

 thumb towards her retreating form, to murmur, 

 " Sing on, Beauty ! " 



They are good friends, nevertheless, these two 

 fellow-servants; and Sleet and Sunshine, as Miss 

 Mary calls them, enjoy together life's April day. 

 " When the old gal is on the hig," says Grundy 

 irreverently alluding to those seasons in which the 

 lady's temper is especially acetose, her observations 

 of the pointed order, and her enunciation so exceed- 

 ingly nimble, that, as Schiller said of Madame de 

 Stiiel, " a man must be all ear to follow her "- 

 " when the old gal is on the hig, I never counterdix 

 nothink. Beautiful, says I, as if I were admiring of a 

 pin- wheel; and off she goes, just like one, a blazing, 

 and fizzing, and spluttering, till all her gunpowder 

 and brimstone's burnt out, and she stops as still as a 



