“What do you understand, Aunt Winnifred?” demanded Arthur, in a resolute and defiant tone, as if he were fully prepared to deny every thing he was about to hear.
“Yes, yes,” continued Aunt Winnifred, musingly, and in a tone of profound sadness, as she still held and contemplated the picture—“yes; yes! I see, I see!”
Arthur was quite vexed.
“Now really my dear aunt,” said he, remonstratingly, “you must be aware that it is not becoming in a woman like you to go on in this way. You ought to explain what you mean,” he added, decidedly.
“Well, my poor boy, the hotter you get the surer I am. Don’t you see?”
Mr. Merlin did not seem to be in the least pacified by this reply. It was, therefore, in an indignant tone that he answered:
“Aunt Winnifred, it is not kind in you to come up here and make me lose my time and temper, while you sit there coolly and talk in infernal parables!”
“Infernal parables!” cried the lady, in a tone of surprise and horror.
“Oh, Arthur, Arthur! that comes of not going to church. Infernal parables! My soul and body, what an awful idea!”
The painter smiled. The contest was too utterly futile. He went slowly back to his easel, and, after a few soothing puffs, began again to rub his colors upon the pallet. He was humming carelessly once more, and putting his brush to the canvas before him, when his aunt remarked,