"Yes, all-burn, scarlet, carrots, flamme d'enfer. Well, go and give her my leavings, yourself and your ancestral—paste."
"Well," said Percy, gloomily, "I might do worse. You never really loved me; you were always like an enemy looking out for faults. You kept postponing our union for something to happen to break it off. But I won't be any woman's slave; I'll use one to drive out the other. None of you shall trample on me." Then he burst forth into singing. Nobody stammers when he sings.
"Shall I, wasting in despair,
Sigh because a woman's fair?
Shall my cheeks grow pale with care
Because another's rosy are?
If she be not kind to me,
What care I how fair she be?"
This resolute little gentleman passed through the gate as he concluded the verse, waved his hand jauntily by way of everlasting adieu, and went off whistling the refrain with great spirit, and both hands in his pockets.
"You impudent!" cried Julia, almost choking; then, authoritatively,
"Percy—Mr. Fitzroy;" then, coaxingly, "Percy dear."
Percy heard, and congratulated himself upon his spirit. "That's the way to treat them," said he to himself.
"Well?" said he, with an air of indifference, and going slowly back to the gate. "What is it now?" said he, a little arrogantly.
She soon let him know. Directly he was quite within reach she gave him a slap in the face that sounded like one plank falling upon another, and marched off with an air of royal dignity, as if she had done the most graceful and lady-like thing in all the world.
How happy are those choice spirits who can always preserve their dignity!
Percy retired red as fire, and one of his cheeks retained that high color for the rest of the day.