ever, during the short period of her absence. In place of Miss Knag being stationed in her accustomed seat, preserving all the dignity and greatness of Madame Mantalini's representative, that worthy soul was reposing on a large box, bathed in tears, while three or four of the young ladies in close attendance upon her, together with the presence of hartshorn, vinegar, and other restoratives, would have borne ample testimony, even without the derangement of the head-dress and front row of curls, to her having fainted desperately.
"Bless me!" said Kate, stepping hastily forward, "What is the matter?"
This inquiry produced in Miss Knag violent symptoms of a relapse; and several young ladies, darting angry looks at Kate, applied more vinegar and hartshorn, and said it was "a shame."
"What is a shame?" demanded Kate. "What is the matter? What has happened? tell me."
"Matter!" cried Miss Knag, coming all at once bolt upright, to the great consternation of the assembled maidens; "Matter! Fie upon you, you nasty creature!"
"Gracious!" cried Kate, almost paralysed by the violence with which the adjective had been jerked out from between Miss Knag's closed teeth; "have I offended you?"
"You offended me!" retorted Miss Knag, "You! a chit, a child, an upstart nobody! Oh, indeed! Ha, ha!"
Now, it was evident as Miss Knag laughed, that something struck her as being exceedingly funny, and as the young ladies took their tone from Miss Knag—she being the chief—they all got up a laugh without a moment's delay, and nodded their heads a little, and smiled sarcastically to each other, as much as to say, how very good that was.
"Here she is," continued Miss Knag, getting off the box, and introducing Kate with much ceremony and many low curtseys to the delighted throng; "here she is—everybody is talking about her—the belle, ladies—the beauty, the—oh, you bold-faced thing!"
At this crisis Miss Knag was unable to repress a virtuous shudder, which immediately communicated itself to all the young ladies, after which Miss Knag laughed, and after that, cried.
"For fifteen years," exclaimed Miss Knag, sobbing in a most affecting manner, "for fifteen years I have been the credit and ornament of this room and the one up-stairs. Thank God," said Miss Knag, stamping first her right foot and then her left with remarkable energy, "I have never in all that time, till now, been exposed to the arts, the vile arts of a creature, who disgraces us all with her proceedings, and makes proper people blush for themselves. But I feel it, I do feel it, although I am disgusted."
Miss Knag here relapsed into softness, and the young ladies renewing their attentions, murmured that she ought to be superior to such things, and that for their part they despised them, and considered them beneath their notice; in witness whereof they called out more emphatically than before that it was a shame, and that they felt so angry, they did, they hardly knew what to do with themselves.
