Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again, 'Pray tell me,Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?'
'My dear young soul,' returned Miss Mowcher,squeezing her hands upon her heart one over the other.'I am ill here, I am very ill. To think that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps prevented it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool!'
Again her large bonnet （very disproportionate to the figure） went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall.