BARNABY RUDGE - A TALE OF THE RIOTS OF 'EIGHTY by Charles ...

constant rubbing and tweaking of her nose, a perpetual change ofposition (arising from the sudden growth of imaginary knots andknobs in her chair), a frequent friction of her eyebrows, theincessant recurrence of a small cough, a small groan, a gasp, asigh, a sniff, a spasmodic start, and by other demonstrations ofthat nature, so file down and rasp, as it were, the patience of thelocksmith, that after looking at her in silence for some time, heat last broke out into this apostrophe:--'Miggs, my good girl, go to bed--do go to bed. You're really worsethan the dripping of a hundred water-butts outside the window, orthe scratching of as many mice behind the wainscot. I can't bearit. Do go to bed, Miggs. To oblige me--do.''You haven't got nothing to untie, sir,' returned Miss Miggs, 'andtherefore your requests does not surprise me. But missis has--andwhile you sit up, mim'--she added, turning to the locksmith's wife,'I couldn't, no, not if twenty times the quantity of cold water wasaperiently running down my back at this moment, go to bed with aquiet spirit.'Having spoken these words, Miss Miggs made divers efforts to rubher shoulders in an impossible place, and shivered from head tofoot; thereby giving the beholders to understand that the imaginarycascade was still in full flow, but that a sense of duty upheld herunder that and all other sufferings, and nerved her to endurance.Mrs Varden being too sleepy to speak, and Miss Miggs having, as thephrase is, said her say, the locksmith had nothing for it but tosigh and be as quiet as he could.But to be quiet with such a basilisk before him was impossible.If he looked another way, it was worse to feel that she was rubbingher cheek, or twitching her ear, or winking her eye, or making allkinds of extraordinary shapes with her nose, than to see her do it.If she was for a moment free from any of these complaints, it was