“Hold your tongue, Miss!”
“Mamma, I shall go and see Fanny to-day,” May continued, as if her father had not spoken. Her mother looked frightened, and turned to her deprecatingly with a look that said, “For Heaven’s sake, don’t!” Her father regarded her for a moment in amazement.
“What do you mean, you little vixen? Let me catch you disobeying me and going to see that ungrateful wicked girl, if you think fit!”
There was a moment in which May Newt turned pale, but she said, in a very low voice,
“I must go.”
“May, I forbid your going,” said Mr. Newt, severely and loudly.
“Father, you have no right to forbid me.”
“I forbid your going,” roared her father, planting himself in front of her, and quite white with wrath.
May said no more.
“A pretty family you have brought up, Mrs. Nancy Newt,” said he, at length, looking at his wife with all the contempt which his voice expressed. “A son who ruins me by his extravagance, a daughter who runs away with—with”—he hesitated to remember the exact expression—“with a pauper-booby, and another daughter who defies and disobeys her father. I congratulate you upon your charming family, upon your distinguished success, Mrs. Newt. Is there no younger brother of your son-in-law whom you might introduce to Miss May Newt? I beg your pardon, she is Miss Newt, now that her sister is so happily married,” said Boniface Newt, bowing ceremoniously to his daughter.