"Thunder and Mars! what's to pay now, I wonder?" exclaimed Esq. Camford, rushing pell-mell into the dining room, where his family were assembled at breakfast, and throwing his delicate wife into hysterics.
"O, Thisbe! run for the nerve-reviver," shrieked Mrs. Camford. "O, Adolphus! why will you not regard my tremulous nerves, and not affright me thus? What desperate thing has happened? O, Adolphus! you'll be the death of me."
"I'll be the death of that cursed young vagabond, John Camford," blurted forth the squire, in a tone of terrible rage.
"O, my son, my brilliant among my jewels! how has he incurred your displeasure?" faintly articulated Mrs. Camford.
"Why, I saw the graceless scamp tugging a girl through the French market this morning, filling her hands with bouquets and all sorts of fol-de-rols. There is where the money goes he wheedles out of me every week; but I'll fix the young rapscallion. Next thing, we shall have some creole girl, or mulatto wench introduced to the family as Mrs. Camford, junior."
The squire fairly foamed at the mouth, with anger. His fair consort was in frantic hysterics, beating the floor with her heels, and exclaiming,
"O, mercy, mercy! my son, my Daniel, Henry, Thomas, Lewis, John! my brilliant, among my jewels! O, spare him for the love of Heaven, my husband, my adored Adolphus!"
Thisbe was following her mistress and bobbing the nerve-reviver to her nose, but it failed to produce the usual effect. All the servants in attendance stood with their mouths agape, while the three jewel daughters proceeded quietly with their breakfast, and Alice sat among them, a silent spectator of the scene. And now, as if to cap the climax, in walked the culprit, Mr. Jack Camford, in propria persona, looking as unconcerned and innocent as if nothing had occurred to displace him in his father's good graces. At sight of her brilliant son, Mrs. Camford shrieked and fell prostrate on the floor, and Thisbe, in the moment of excitement, seized the senseless form and carried it from the room with as much ease as she would have borne a cotton-bale. No sooner had the door closed on his delicate spouse, than Esq. Camford bellowed forth, "Daniel Henry Thomas Lewis John Camford, you rascal, come and stand before your father!" The son instantly did as commanded. Doffing his "Kossuth," and passing one hand through the long locks of curling black hair, he swept it away from his clear, smooth brow, and stood confronting his wrathful parent with a calm, unembarrassed aspect. He was certainly a handsome young fellow, and Winnie Morris was quite excusable for loving him a little in her girlish heart. The father's anger softened as he gazed on his fair-looking boy, and when he spoke, his voice had lost all its former harshness.
"Jack, my lad," he said, "why do you stand gazing about you thus? Come, and sit down to your breakfast."
"You bade me stand before you, father, therefore I did so," said the son, now approaching the table and assuming a seat beside his cousin Alice.