“No,” she said, “no.”
“My dear child,” cried her ladyship, “pray, pray take a little interest in your dresses.”
“I cannot, mamma,” cried Maude, passionately. “I have not the heart.”
“Bah, Maude!” cried Tom, “be a trump, I say. When you are married and have got your establishment, I’d jolly soon let some one know who was mistress then.”
“Tom, your language is disgraceful,” cried her ladyship. “It is as low and disrespectful as that of the people in the street.”
“I wish your treatment of your children were half as good. Here’s every shilling a fellow wants screwed out, till I feel as if I should like to enlist; and as for Maudey here, you’ve treated her as if she were a piece of sculpture, to be sold to the highest bidder. I suppose she has not got a heart.”
“Lord Barmouth!” exclaimed her ladyship, faintly, as she lay back in her chair, and lavishly used her smelling-salts, “if one of my brothers had spoken to dear mamma as that boy speaks to me, dear papa would have felled him to the earth.”
“There you are, gov’nor, there’s your chance,” said Tom, grinning. “Come and knock me down, but don’t bruise your knuckles, for my head’s as hard as iron.”
Lord Barmouth took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his hands upon it, not noticing that it was stained with gravy, gazing in a troubled way from wife to son, and back, and then crossed to the former to say something in a whisper, to which her ladyship replied—
“Pshaw.”