action; and thus, everything being in readiness, Mrs. Ricketts,
whose consideration never suffered her to take people unawares, now
began her nervous attack in all form.

If ague hysterics recovery from drowning tic-doloureux, and an extensive
burn had all sent representatives of their peculiar agonies, with
injunctions to struggle for a mastery of expression, the symptoms could
scarcely have equalled those now exhibited. There was not a contortion
nor convulsion that her countenance did not undergo, while the
devil's tattoo, kept up by her heels upon the floor, and her knuckles
occasionally on the table, and now and then on Scroope's head, added
fearfully to the effect of her screams, which varied from the deep groan
of the melodrame to the wildest shrieks of tragedy.

"There's no danger, Miss Dalton," whispered Martha, whose functions of
hand-rubbing, temple-bathing, wine-giving, and so forth, were performed
with a most jog-trot regularity.

"When she sc-sc-screams, she's all right," added Purvis; and, certainly,
the most anxious friend might have been comforted on the present
occasion.

"Shall I not send for a physician?" asked Kate, eagerly.

"On no account, Miss Dalton. We are quite accustomed to these seizures.
My dear sister's nerves are so susceptible."

"Yes," said Scroope, who, be it remarked, had already half finished a
bottle of hock, "poor Zoe is all sensibility the scabbard too sharp for
the sword. Won't you have a glass of wine, Miss Dalton?"

"Thanks, sir, I take none. I trust she is better now she looks easier."

"She is better; but this is a difficult moment," whispered Martha. "Any
shock any sudden impression now might prove fatal."

"What is to be done, then?" said Kate, in terror.

"She must be put to bed at once, the room darkened, and the strictest
silence preserved. Can you spare your room?"

"Oh, of course, anything everything at such a moment," cried the
terrified girl, whose reason was now completely mastered by her fears.

[Illustration: 408]

"She must be carried. Will you give orders, Miss Dalton? and, Scroope,
step down to the carriage, and bring up--" Here Miss Ricketts's voice
degenerated into an inaudible whisper; but Scroope left the room to obey
the command.

Her sympathy for suffering had so thoroughly occupied Kate, that all
the train of unpleasant consequences that were to follow this unhappy
incident had never once occurred to her; nor did a thought of Lady
Hest