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 persuade them to touch it! I therefore advise you, my dear madam, strongly to adopt the same course. It is certain to cure them! I know I have proved it to be a specific!"

Aunt Eleanor smiled: she moreover blushed: and, in order to hide that blush, she went to the sideboard, and having got out a decanter of sherry, placed it before him with a glass and some cake. The very sight of the wine—of which he was fond—made the reverend gentleman eloquent; but the moment he had tasted it down went the glass, and he made up one of the most extraordinary faces ever beheld!—he screwed up his nose, and compressed his lips, and while drawing the corners right down to his chin, looked precisely as if he had been taking something filthy.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Aunt Eleanor, laughing; for really the pastor's face was irresistibly droll—"what on earth is the matter?"

The reverend gentleman shuddered and grunted, and shook his head, and pointed to the glass on the table, with the view of intimating his strong disapprobation of the wine.

"Do you not like the flavour of it?"

"No-o-o-o!" replied the reverend gentleman, shuddering, with even more violence than before. "It's phy-z-z-zic!"

"Dear me!" said Aunt Eleanor, "why, it came out of the very same bin as the last!"

The reverend gentleman did not care much about what particular bin it came out of—all he cared about was its peculiar flavour—which flavour really was, in his judgment, bad.

"Some trick has been played with that wine," he observed, as soon as he was able to unscrew his mouth, "depend upon it some trick has been played."

"Impossible, my dear sir!" exclaimed Aunt Eleanor, rising for a glass, with the view of tasting it herself. "Why, what!" she added, on putting her lips to it "what, in the name of goodness, can it be?"

"Filthy, isn't it?" observed the pastor.

"Filthy!" exclaimed Aunt Eleanor, and burst at once into a merry peal of laughter. "Excuse me," she added, as soon as she could; "pray excuse me: I know that I am very, very rude, but you really do make such a funny face!"

Well, that, in the reverend gentleman's view, was rich. He would, at that particular moment, have felt great pleasure in being informed what man, possessing anything like a palate, could swallow—as he had swallowed—half a glass, or more, of that stuff, without making up a face, which might be denominated fairly funny.

"Well," said Aunt Eleanor, who had been highly amused, and who then rang the bell, "we must rectify this."

"You will never be able to rectify that!" said the reverend gentleman; "that's past all rectification."

Aunt Eleanor—albeit, not much in the habit of laughing—laughed heartily again: and when Mary appeared, she gave her the key of the cellar, with the most tranquil face she could assume, and directed her to bring up a bottle of sherry.