the bell, but looked at the two intruders just as
Macready looks at the witches in _Macbeth_; for Mr Morgan was my legal
adviser, and had been my uncle's agent, and transacted all the business
connected with the succession; and I had such confidence in him that I
never opened his letters, and had of course thrown the note they talked
of into the great wooden box that was the receptacle of all my
correspondence.

In the mean time, the baby began to squall.

"Take the brat away, and I'll tell a little bit of my mind to Mr
Morgan," I said, grinding my teeth in a horrible passion; and, in a
moment, the two women disappeared with the child, roaring and screaming,
as if they had stuck pins into it on purpose to drive me mad.

If I had been a man of a tragic turn of mind, and fond of giving vent to
the passion of a scene, I would have walked up and down the room,
striking myself on the brow or breast, and shouting, "Confusion!
distraction!" and other powerful words which Mr Kean used to deliver
with astonishing emphasis; but I had no talent for the intense, and
threw myself on the sofa, exclaiming, "Here's a pretty go!"

And a pretty go it undoubtedly was--two black women and a
saffron-coloured baby established with me, as if I had been married to a
Hottentot; and my sister-in-law, as is very often the case, had come to
attend to her nieces' morals and education.

"So! Mr Morgan, what is the meaning of all this?"

But before I had time for further exclamations, my friend Mr Morgan, who
had come quietly into the room, interrupted me----

"Hush, my dear Sneezum--you are delighted, I'm sure. A most interesting
incident--eh, Sneezum?"

"Oh! these things do all very well in a book," I began; "but, by jingo,
sir, it's a very different thing in real life; and I tell you very
fairly, I'd sooner be married at once than have all the troubles of
bringing up a set of children that I have nothing to do with."

"Children! my dear Sneezum?"

"To be sure; how do I know that some more black women mayn't come--with
some more children--till my house grows like a gallery of bronzed
figures; but I'll sell them--see if I don't; I'll pack them all on an
Italian boy's head-board, and sell them to the doctors--every one."

"You labour under a mistake, my dear Sneezum. You've got my letter?"

"Yes--I got it--but"----

"Oh, then, of course you are too happy to show such respect to the
wishes of the defunct."

"What defunct?"

"Your u