At the time of the lamented death of my uncle, I was about thirty years of age, and for ten years before that, had been sleeping partner in a house in Liverpool; and I can honestly say I did my part of the duty to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned. I slept incessantly--not exactly in a house in Liverpool but in a very comfortable one--the drawing-room floor, near the Regent's Park. Twice a-year a balance-sheet came in, and a little ready money. I put the money carefully away in a drawer, and threw the balance-sheet in the fire. It was a very happy life, for I subscribed to a circulating library, and wrote the beginnings of books continually.
One day, about six months after I was in possession of the fortune, I heard a ring at the bell. There was something in the ring different from any I had ever heard before--a sort of sweet, modest tingling kind of a ring. I felt as if somebody was shaking my hand all the time; and, on looking back on the event, I think there must be something in mesmerism and every thing else--homoeopathy and the water cure included; for it was certainly quite unaccountable on ordinary principles--but so it was. The maid was very slow in answering the bell. There was another pull. The same mysterious effects--a sort of jump--a tremor as it were, not at all unpleasant, but very odd--so I went to the door myself; and there fixed on me, in the most extraordinary manner, were two of the blackest eyes I ever saw--illuminating cheeks of a dark yellow colour, and increasing the whiteness of the most snowy teeth--the brightest, glistenest, shiningest, teeth that can possibly be imagined. She wore--for I may as well tell you it was a woman--she wore a flowing white veil upon her head, the queerest petticoats, and funniest shoes--at that time I had not seen the Chinese Collection and thought it was Desdemona (whom I had seen Mr Kean put to death a few nights before) "walking" in some of Othello's clothes. What she said, or if she said any thing, I was too much astonished to make out; but she walked into my room, smiling with her wonderful teeth, and curtsying with the extraordinary petticoats down to the very floor--and calling me "Massa Sib."
"My good woman," I said, "I am afraid you make a mistake. I don't know any one of the name of Sib;" but I checked myself, for I thought she perhaps mistook me--I wore prodigious whiskers at that time--for a gallant colonel, whose name begins with that euphonious syllable.