k hair together--removing
them, I say, and turning her great eyes towards the stranger, and giving
her head a shake, down let tumble such a flood of shining waving heavy
glossy jetty hair, as would have done Mr. Rowland's heart good to see.
It tumbled down Miss Morgiana's back, and it tumbled over her shoulders,
it tumbled over the chair on which she sat, and from the midst of it her
jolly bright-eyed rosy face beamed out with a triumphant smile, which
said, "A'n't I now the most angelic being you ever saw?"

"By Heaven! it's the most beautiful thing I ever saw!" cried Mr. Walker,
with undisguised admiration.

"ISN'T it?" said Mrs. Crump, who made her daughter's triumph her own.
"Heigho! when I acted at 'The Wells' in 1820, before that dear girl was
born, _I_ had such a head of hair as that, to a shade, sir, to a shade.
They called me Ravenswing on account of it. I lost my head of hair when
that dear child was born, and I often say to her, 'Morgiana, you came
into the world to rob your mother of her 'air.' Were you ever at 'The
Wells,' sir, in 1820? Perhaps you recollect Miss Delancy? I am that Miss
Delancy. Perhaps you recollect,--

"'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink,
By the light of the star,
On the blue river's brink,
I heard a guitar.

"'I heard a guitar,
On the blue waters clear,
And knew by its mu-u-sic,
That Selim was near!'

You remember that in the 'Bagdad Bells'? Fatima, Delancy; Selim,
Benlomond (his real name was Bunnion: and he failed, poor fellow, in
the public line afterwards). It was done to the tambourine, and dancing
between each verse,--

"'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink,
How the soft music swells,
And I hear the soft clink
Of the minaret bells!

"'Tink-a--'"

"Oh!" here cried Miss Crump, as if in exceeding pain (and whether Mr.
Eglantine had twitched, pulled, or hurt any one individual hair of that
lovely head I don't know)--"Oh, you are killing me, Mr. Eglantine!"

And with this mamma, who was in her attitude, holding up the end of her
boa as a visionary tambourine, and Mr. Walker, who was looking at her,
and in his amusement at the mother's performances had almost forgotten
the charms of the daughter--both turned round at once, and looked at
her with many expressions of sympathy, while Eglantine, in a voice of
reproach, said, "KILLED you, Morgiana! I kill YOU?"

"I'm better now," said the young lady, w