"Ma'am! You venture to stand there before my face and tell me composedly that you permitted Miss Black to go off alone in the face of such a storm as this?" roared Old Hurricane.
"Sir, I could not help it!" said the old lady.
"Demmy, mum! You should have helped it! A woman of your age to stand there and tell me that she could not prevent a young creature like Capitola from going out alone in the storm!"
"Major Warfield, could you have done it?"
"Me? Demmy, I should think so; but that is not the question! You——"
He was interrupted by a blinding flash of lightning, followed immediately by an awful peal of thunder and a sudden fall of rain.
Old Hurricane sprang up as though he had been shot off his chair and trotted up and down the floor exclaiming:
"And she—she out in all this storm! Mrs. Condiment, mum, you deserve to be ducked! Yes, mum, you do! Wool! Wool! you diabolical villain!"
"Yes, marse, yes, sir, here I is!" exclaimed that officer, in trepidation, as he appeared in the doorway. "De windows and doors, sir, is all fastened close and de maids are all in the dining-room as you ordered, and——"
"Hang the maids and the doors and windows, too! Who the demon cares about them? How dared you, you knave, permit your young mistress to ride, unattended, in the face of such a storm, too! Why didn't you go with her, sir?"