so _ill_, my love--how sweet and fresh you _do_ look!
Give your auntie a kiss--there. _Oh_! you naughty girl, how jealous
all the girls will be of those _eyes_ of yours!--so ill--_such_
dreadful sick-headaches--oh, yes! I'm a _great_ sufferer, dear,
a great _sufferer_--but no one, hardly, knows it. I tell _you_, you
know, dear, because you are my own darling little Cornelia. Oh! those
sweet _eyes_! So ill--so _unable_, you know, to be _up_ and _doing_--to
be as I should wish to be--as I once _was_--as you are now,
you--splendid--creature--you! Now you _must_ let me speak my heart out
to you, dear; it's my nature to do it, and I _can't_ restrain,
it--foolish I know, but I always _was_ so foolish! oh dear! well--Ah!
there's the first bell already. Let me show you your room, darling. As I
was going to say, I've been so indisposed that I've been obliged to pet
myself up a little here, before starting on our _tour_, you know, but in
a week I mean to be well again--I _will_ be. Oh! I have immense
_resolution_, dear Neelie--_immense_ fortitude, where those I love are
concerned. There, this is your little nest--now _one_ more kiss. Oh!
those sweet _lips_! Remember you sit by me at dinner."

"What a funny old woman Aunt Margaret is!" said Cornelia to herself,
after she had closed the door of her chamber. "Such a queer voice--goes
away up high, and then away down low, all in the same sentence. And what
a small head for such a tall woman! and she's so thin! I do hope she
won't go on kissing me so much with her big mouth! how fast she does
twist it about! and then her front teeth stick out so! and she keeps
shoving that great black ear-trumpet at me, whenever she thinks I want
to speak; and her eyes are as pale and watery as they can be, and they
look all around you and never at you. Well, it's very mean of me to
criticise the old thing so; she's as kind as she can be. I wonder
whether she knows Mr. Bressant; her manner reminds me sometimes of him;
in a horrid way, of course, but--poor fellow! what is he doing now, I'd
like to know!" Here Cornelia's meditations became very profound and
private indeed; she, meanwhile, in her material capacity, making such
alterations and improvements in her personal appearance as were
necessary to prepare herself for the table.

Every few minutes--oftener than any circumstances could have
warranted--she pulled a handsome gold watch out of her belt and
consulted it. She did not, to be sure, seem so