kept avake with rats, and the nervous terror they had
experienced, assisted by the narcotic effects of the carbonic
acid gas they were inhaling beneath the clothes, there they
lay, enfolded in each other's arms, like sleeping graces in
a group of statuary ! Dame knocked again, when a faint
voice said, " Come in.*' In she went, and oh, what a picture
of horrors presented itself ! She shrieked out, " Oh, look'ee
here! whatever shall we do?" The three girls shot up like
a Jack-in-the-box, and sat bolt upright in bed, with their
eyes and mouths wide open. '* Dear, dear, dear !" said
dame, *' whatever shall we do ? Here's this beautiful velvet
jacket on the ground, and covered all over with dirt — ^we
shall all go mad — ^an' there's the beautiful petticoat just as
bad. I never saw anything so cruel in all my life — an'
there's the beautiful luit tlmist into the comer without its
feather — but where are the Bloomers gone 1"

Here the two daughters, assisted by their mother, sent
forth such shrieks of lamentation and horror, that it aroused
the good man from his luncheon ; and as for poor Eliza, ate
fell back in hysterics. In came master : " Why, what i' the
world's the matter T' ''Matter, John," said dame, ''just
look'ee here ; — I'll lay my life on't, 'tis those cursed rats!"
John scratched his head, and with a vacant gaze, said, "' Yeacy
like, very like."

Till now, they had not noticed poor Eliza in hysterics !
'' Dear, dear," said dame, " here's a peck o' trouble ; the poor
child's fainted away." Downstairs she ran for some little
antidote, and met Eliza's mother at the bottom, who had just
arrived from London. John, in the interim, went to pick op
the hat, and saw in it a large rat and a number of young ones.
