any I had ever heard before--a sort of sweet, modest tingling kind of a
ring. I felt as if somebody was shaking my hand all the time; and, on
looking back on the event, I think there must be something in mesmerism
and every thing else--homoeopathy and the water cure included; for it
was certainly quite unaccountable on ordinary principles--but so it was.
The maid was very slow in answering the bell. There was another pull.
The same mysterious effects--a sort of jump--a tremor as it were, not at
all unpleasant, but very odd--so I went to the door myself; and there
fixed on me, in the most extraordinary manner, were two of the blackest
eyes I ever saw--illuminating cheeks of a dark yellow colour, and
increasing the whiteness of the most snowy teeth--the brightest,
glistenest, shiningest, teeth that can possibly be imagined. She
wore--for I may as well tell you it was a woman--she wore a flowing
white veil upon her head, the queerest petticoats, and funniest
shoes--at that time I had not seen the Chinese Collection and thought it
was Desdemona (whom I had seen Mr Kean put to death a few nights before)
"walking" in some of Othello's clothes. What she said, or if she said
any thing, I was too much astonished to make out; but she walked into my
room, smiling with her wonderful teeth, and curtsying with the
extraordinary petticoats down to the very floor--and calling me "Massa
Sib."

"My good woman," I said, "I am afraid you make a mistake. I don't know
any one of the name of Sib;" but I checked myself, for I thought she
perhaps mistook me--I wore prodigious whiskers at that time--for a
gallant colonel, whose name begins with that euphonious syllable.

"No, no--no colonel," she said; "me wants _you_--me no care for
colonels." What could she possibly want with me? I had never seen the
woman before, or any body like her, except a picture of the Queen of
Sheba when she was on a visit to Solomon. Could this woman come from
Sheba? Could she take me for--no, no--she couldn't possibly take me for
Solomon. So I was quite non-plussed.

"You no get no letter, Massa Sib, to tell you we was to come--eh?"

A letter? a letter?--I had had a hundred and fifty letters, but put them
all into a box. How was it possible for me to read such a number? and
who did she mean by _us_? How many more of then were coming?

"Massa Sib vill be so fond of him's babba--him vill"----

A dreadful thought came into my head--a conspiracy to extort money--a