“O,” cried she, laughing, “did you never hear us quarrel before? why when I was here last summer, I used to affront him ten times a day.”
“And was that a regular ceremony?”
“No, really, I did not do it purposely; but it so happened; either by talking of the castle, or the tower, or the draw-bridge, or the fortifications; or wishing they were all employed to fill up that odious moat; or something of that sort; for you know a small matter will put him out of humour.”
“And do you call it so small a matter to wish a man's whole habitation annihilated?”
“Lord, I don't wish anything about it! I only say so to provoke him.”
“And what strange pleasure can that give you?”
“O the greatest in the world! I take much delight in seeing anybody in a passion. It makes them look so excessively ugly!”
“And is that the way you like every body should look, Lady Honoria?”
“O my dear, if you mean me, I never was in a passion twice in my life; for as soon as ever I have provoked the people, I always run away. But sometimes I am in a dreadful fright lest they should see me laugh, for they make such horrid grimaces it is hardly possible to look at them. When my father has been angry with me, I have sometimes been obliged to pretend I was crying, by way of excuse for putting my handkerchief to my face; for really he looks so excessively hideous, you would suppose he was making mouths, like the children, merely to frighten one.”
“Amazing!” exclaimed Cecilia, “your ladyship can, indeed, never want diversion, to find it in the anger of your father. But does it give you no other sensation? are you not afraid?”