the impatient Captain Dunning.

Miss Martha, who had just concluded and refolded the letter, screamed
"Oh!" and leaped up.

Miss Jane did the same, with this difference, that she leaped up before
screaming "Oh!" instead of after doing so. Then both ladies, hearing
voices outside, rushed towards the door of the parlour with the
intention of flying to their rooms and there carefully arranging their
tall white caps and clean white collars, and keeping the early visitor,
whoever he or she might be, waiting fully a quarter of an hour or twenty
minutes, before they should descend, stiffly, starchly, and
ceremoniously, to receive him--or her.

These intentions were frustrated by the servant-girl, who opened the
green-painted door and let in the captain, who rushed into the parlour
and rudely kissed his speechless sisters.

"Can it be?" gasped Martha.

Jane had meant to gasp "Impossible!" but seeing Ailie at that moment
bound into Martha's arms, she changed her intention, uttered a loud
scream instead, and fell down flat upon the floor under the impression
that she had fainted. Finding, however, that this was not the case, she
got up again quickly--ignorant of the fact that the tall cap had come
off altogether in the fall--and stood before her sister weeping, and
laughing, and wringing her hands, and waiting for her turn.

But it did not seem likely to come soon, for Martha continued to hug
Ailie, whom she had raised entirely from the ground, with passionate
fervour. Seeing this, and feeling that to wait was impossible, Jane
darted forward, threw her arms round Ailie--including Martha, as an
unavoidable consequence--and pressed the child's back to her throbbing
bosom.

Between the two poor Ailie was nearly suffocated. Indeed, she was
compelled to scream, not because she wished to, but because Martha and
Jane squeezed a scream out of her. The scream acted on the former as a
reproof. She resigned Ailie to Jane, flung herself recklessly on the
sofa, and kicked.

Meanwhile, Captain Dunning stood looking on, rubbing his hands,--
slapping his thighs, and blowing his nose. The servant-girl also stood
looking on doing nothing--her face was a perfect blaze of amazement.

"Girl," said the captain, turning suddenly towards her, "is breakfast
ready?"

"Yes," gasped the girl.

"Then fetch it."

The girl did not move.

"D'ye hear?" cried the captain.

"Ye-es."

"Then look alive."

The captain followed this up wi