to complete the young lady's mortification, she was compelled at Mrs. Wititterly's request to perform the ceremony of introducing the odious persons, whom she regarded with the utmost indignation and abhorrence.
"Mrs. Wititterly is delighted," said Mr. Wititterly, rubbing his hands; "delighted, my Lord, I am sure, with this opportunity of contracting an acquaintance which, I trust, my Lord, we shall improve. Julia, my dear, you must not allow yourself to be too much excited, you must not. Indeed you must not. Mrs. Wititterly is of a most excitable nature, Sir Mulberry. The snuff of a candle, the wick of a lamp, the bloom on a peach, the down on a butterfly. You might blow her away, my Lord; you might blow her away."
Sir Mulberry seemed to think that it would be a great convenience if the lady could be blown away. He said, however, that the delight was mutual, and Lord Verisopht added that it was mutual, whereupon Messrs. Pyke and Pluck were heard to murmur from the distance that it was very mutual indeed.
"I take an interest, my Lord," said Mrs. Wititterly, with a faint smile, "such an interest in the drama."
"Ye—es. It's very interasting," replied Lord Verisopht.
"I'm always ill after Shakspeare," said Mrs. Wititterly. "I scarcely exist the next day; I find the re-action so very great after a tragedy, my Lord, and Shakspeare is such a delicious creature."
"Ye—es!" replied Lord Yerisopht. "He was a clayver man."
"Do you know, my Lord," said Mrs. Wititterly, after a long silence, "I find I take so much more interest in his plays, after having been to that dear little dull house he was born in! Were you ever there, my Lord?"
"No, nayver," replied Verisopht.
"Then really you ought to go, my Lord," returned Mrs. Wititterly, in very languid and drawling accents. "I don't know how it is, but after you've seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one."
"Ye—es!" replied Lord Verisopht. "I shall certainly go there."
"Julia, my life," interposed Mr. Wititterly, "you are deceiving his lordship—unintentionally, my Lord, she is deceiving you. It is your poetical temperament, my dear — your ethereal soul—your fervid imagination, which throws you into a glow of genius and excitement. There is nothing in the place, my dear—nothing, nothing."
"I think there must be something in the place," said Mrs. Nickleby, who had been listening in silence; "for, soon after I was married, I went to Stratford with poor dear Mr. Nickleby, in a post-chaise from Birmingham—was it a post-chaise though!" said Mrs. Nickleby, considering; "yes, it must have been a post-chaise, because I recollect remarking at the time that the driver had a green shade over his left eye;—in a post-chaise from Birmingham, and after we had seen Shakspeare's tomb and birth-place, we went back to the inn there, where we slept that night, and I recollect that all night long I
