A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations.

I knew there was but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo, and I recoiled from admitting such a boisterous guest.
"Gabriella, Gabriella!" rung a voice through the passage.

"Are you asleep?
Are you dead?
Open the door, pray, or I shall kill myself squeezing in through the key-hole." With a deep sigh of vexation, I opened the door, and she sprang in with the momentum of a ball hurled by a bat.
"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, catching me round the waist and turning me to the light, "what _have_ you been doing?
where _have_ you been staying?
Ill!--tired!--it is all a sham.

He need not try to impose on me such a story as that.

I never saw you look so brilliantly well.
Your cheeks and lips are red like the damask rose, and your eyes,--I never saw such eyes before.