"I am dying!" she groaned.

"Then please remember me in your will, to the extent of two dollars,"
returned the hackman with much humor. "You're only a little sea-sick,
miss; as often happens to people in humble circumstances when they ride
in a kerridge for the first time."

Still panting, Miss POTTS paid and discharged this friendly man, and,
weariedly entering the building, followed the signs up-stairs to her
guardian's office.

After knocking several times at the right door without reply, she turned
the knob, and entered so softly that the venerable lawyer was not
aroused from the slumber into which he had fallen in his chair by the
window. With a copy of _Putnam's Magazine_ still grasped in his honest
right hand, good Mr. DIBBLE slept like a drugged person; nor could the
young girl awaken him until, by a happy inspiration, she had snatched
away the monthly and cast it through the casement.

"Am I dreaming?" exclaimed the aged man, when thus suddenly rescued from
his deadly lethargy at last "Is that you, my dear; or are you your late
mother?"

"I am your ridiculously unhappy ward," answered the Flowerpot,
tremulously. "Oh, poor, dear, absurd EDDY!"

"And you have come here all alone?"

"Yes; and to escape being married to EDDY'S perfectly hateful uncle, who
has the same as ordered me to become his utterly disgusted bride. Oh,