“Ah! very well, it is just as easy to speak to you both at the same time,” said the old gentleman, turning around in his chair and facing the culprits.
And very imposing looked the veteran as he sat there with his majestic person, grave countenance and silver hair and beard.
And the young cousins were certainly awed by the dignity of his aspect as well as abashed by a sense of their own follies.
“Come and stand before me, sir and madam.” (This gentleman of the old school, always on ceremonious occasions, addressed ladies, whether married or single, by the title of “madam,” which in its true meaning is simply ma dame, or my lady, and applies with equal propriety to maids or matrons.)
“Sir and madam, come and stand before me,” he said.
And the young people, with the reverence they had been educated to show to age, approached and stood before the old man.
Their ready obedience mollified him to a certain extent; for when he spoke again it was in a milder manner.
“My daughter and my nephew,” he said, “your conduct lately, and especially your deportment last evening, has shamed and grieved me. It might be said of our ancient house, as it has been said of another noble line, that all the men were brave and all the women pure. Let me not see in you two the first exceptions to that proud rule.”
The cheeks of the young lady and the brow of the young gentleman flushed crimson with mortification; but neither spoke, and the old gentleman continued:
“No brave man ever tries to supplant an accepted suitor. And no pure woman ever encourages the rival of her betrothed.”