As the good lady, who had by this time got the steam up to a very high degree of pressure, hazarded the above uncomfortable suggestion, Annie, who had been listening with an expression of painful annoyance to her aunt’s harangue, suddenly turned pale and glanced with a look of appealing inquiry towards her father, who replied to her rather than to Miss Livingstone in the following terms:—
“Really, my dear Annie, I am compelled to say that the fears with which your excellent relative” (and he looked bayonets at Minerva, who shook her head till her terrific cap rustled like an angry hailstorm) “would seek to inspire you are utterly without foundation.” He paused, took a pinch of snuff viciously, as though it were gunpowder and he was priming himself for a fresh discharge; and thus prepared he turned to Lewis, saying—but we will reserve the volley for another chapter.
CHAPTER XVII.—CONTAINS MUCH FOLLY AND A LITTLE COMMON SENSE.
“The truth of the matter is this, Mr. Arundel,” began General Grant. “From a mistaken policy your future pupil has been indulged in every caprice of his weak intellect, till the slightest opposition to his wishes irritates him beyond all control that has yet been exercised over him; but as his only attendants are an old female domestic who was his nurse, and her son, a lad younger than Sir Walter himself, whom he has been foolishly permitted to look upon in the light of a companion, this is not so much to be wondered at.”
“It will be a difficult task to eradicate faults of temper which have been allowed to become habitual, especially where the reasoning faculties are defective,” observed Lewis thoughtfully.
“You may well say that, sir,” chimed in Miss Livingstone. “His reasoning faculties (as you please to term them) are so defective, that in my humble opinion the boy is neither more nor less than a fool; and you may as well try to drive a pig straight as to talk sense to a fool. But how a man so particular as General Grant can have brought such an inmate into his family, and then expect that things are to go on with the order and precision that——”
“Madam!” began the General in a voice of thunder, his stock of patience utterly exhausted by this indirect mode of attack. But Annie, with a degree of tact and moral courage for which Lewis had by no means been disposed to give her credit, laid her hand imploringly on her father’s arm, and whispered a few magical words which served to avert the storm that had appeared inevitable. An awkward pause ensued, which was broken by the General, who, rising majestically from his chair, informed Lewis that he should request his attendance in half-an-hour; then casting a withering glance at Miss Livingstone, which caused that respectable porcupine of private life to bristle up if possible more fiercely than before, he quitted the room. No sooner had her nephew-in-law’s retreating footsteps ceased to echo through the long corridor than the good lady, freed from the restraint of his presence, did then and there openly, avowedly, and with much vehemence, utter a declaration of war to the knife with that gallant officer, issued a protest against the introduction of “rampant idiots” into that heretofore peaceful family, and finally assert her own liberty of action by promulgating her determination to depart forthwith, leaving her companions to contemplate the agreeable contingencies of “being frightened out of their wits every day, and murdered in their beds all night.”
Having in some degree relieved her mind by this explosion, she applied the superfluous steam still remaining to the purpose of locomotion, her crisp schako rending the air, and her high-heeled shoes knocking sharp little double knocks, as of an angry postman, against the polished oak floor as she swept along.