"Don't, Lascelles," exclaimed Miss Dundas, "the man must be a perfect idiot to write such rhodomontade."
"O! it is delectable!" returned her lover, opening the paper again; "it would make a charming ditty! Come, I will sing it. Shall it be to the tune of 'The Babes in the Wood,' or 'Chevy Chase,' or 'The Beggar of Bethnal Green?"
"Pitiless, senseless man!" exclaimed Mary, rising from her chair, where she had been striving to subdue the emotions with which every line in the poem filled her heart.
"Monster!" cried the enraged Euphemia, taking courage at Miss
Beaufort's unusual warmth; "I will have the paper."
"You sha'n't," answered the malicious coxcomb; and raising his arm higher than her reach, he tore it in a hundred pieces. "I'll teach pretty ladies to call names!"
At this sight, no longer able to contain herself, Mary rushed out of the room, and hurrying to her chamber, threw herself upon the bed, where she gave way to a paroxysm of tears which shook her almost to suffocation.
During the first burst of her indignation, her agitated spirit breathed every appellation of abhorrence and reproach on Lascelles and his malignant mistress. Then wiping her flowing eyes, she exclaimed, "Yet can I wonder, when I compare Constantine with what they are? The man who dares to be virtuous beyond others, and to appear so, arms the self-love of all common characters against him."
Such being her meditations, she excused herself from joining the family at dinner, and it was not until evening that she felt herself at all able to treat the ill-natured group with decent civility.
To avoid spending more hours than were absolutely necessary in the company of a woman she now loathed, next morning Miss Beaufort borrowed Lady Dundas's sedan-chair, and ordering it to Lady Tinemouth's, found her at home alone, but evidently much discomposed.
"I intrude on you, Lady Tinemouth!" said Mary, observing her looks, and withdrawing from the offered seat.