“He risked mine an hour ago,” responded Angelo, gloomily; “did he consider me?” A thought swept through his mind that made him shudder. “If I had not run, I might have been killed in a duel on the Sabbath day, and my soul would have been lost—lost.”
“Oh, don't fret, it wasn't in any danger,” said Luigi, irritably; “they wouldn't waste it for a little thing like that; there's a glass case all ready for it in the heavenly museum, and a pin to stick it up with.”
Aunt Patsy was shocked, and said:
“Looy, Looy!—don't talk so, dear!”
Rowena's soft heart was pierced by Luigi's unfeeling words, and she murmured to herself, “Oh, if I but had the dear privilege of protecting and defending him with my weak voice!—but alas! this sweet boon is denied me by the cruel conventions of social intercourse.”
“Get their bed ready,” said Aunt Patsy to Nancy, “and shut up the windows and doors, and light their candles, and see that you drive all the mosquitoes out of their bar, and make up a good fire in their stove, and carry up some bags of hot ashes to lay to his feet—”
“—and a shovel of fire for his head, and a mustard plaster for his neck, and some gum shoes for his ears,” Luigi interrupted, with temper; and added, to himself, “Damnation, I'm going to be roasted alive, I just know it!”
“Why, Looy! Do be quiet; I never saw such a fractious thing. A body would think you didn't care for your brother.”
“I don't—to that extent, Aunt Patsy. I was glad the drowning was postponed a minute ago, but I'm not now. No, that is all gone by; I want to be drowned.”
“You'll bring a judgment on yourself just as sure as you live, if you go on like that. Why, I never heard the beat of it. Now, there—there! you've said enough. Not another word out of you—I won't have it!”