a lamp, the bloom on a
peach, the down on a butterfly. You might blow her away, my lord; you
might blow her away.'

Sir Mulberry seemed to think that it would be a great convenience if the
lady could be blown away. He said, however, that the delight was mutual,
and Lord Verisopht added that it was mutual, whereupon Messrs Pyke and
Pluck were heard to murmur from the distance that it was very mutual
indeed.

'I take an interest, my lord,' said Mrs Wititterly, with a faint smile,
'such an interest in the drama.'

'Ye--es. It's very interesting,' replied Lord Verisopht.

'I'm always ill after Shakespeare,' said Mrs Wititterly. 'I scarcely
exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after a tragedy,
my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.'

'Ye--es!' replied Lord Verisopht. 'He was a clayver man.'

'Do you know, my lord,' said Mrs Wititterly, after a long silence, 'I
find I take so much more interest in his plays, after having been to
that dear little dull house he was born in! Were you ever there, my
lord?'

'No, nayver,' replied Verisopht.

'Then really you ought to go, my lord,' returned Mrs Wititterly, in very
languid and drawling accents. 'I don't know how it is, but after you've
seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or
other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one.'

'Ye--es!' replied Lord Verisopht, 'I shall certainly go there.'

'Julia, my life,' interposed Mr Wititterly, 'you are deceiving his
lordship--unintentionally, my lord, she is deceiving you. It is
your poetical temperament, my dear--your ethereal soul--your fervid
imagination, which throws you into a glow of genius and excitement.
There is nothing in the place, my dear--nothing, nothing.'

'I think there must be something in the place,' said Mrs Nickleby, who
had been listening in silence; 'for, soon after I was married, I went
to Stratford with my poor dear Mr Nickleby, in a post-chaise
from Birmingham--was it a post-chaise though?' said Mrs Nickleby,
considering; 'yes, it must have been a post-chaise, because I recollect
remarking at the time that the driver had a green shade over his
left eye;--in a post-chaise from Birmingham, and after we had seen
Shakespeare's tomb and birthplace, we went back to the inn there, where
we slept that night, and I recollect that all night long I dreamt of
nothing but a black gentleman, at full length, in plaster-of-Paris,
with a lay