"Oh! you look—you look more like a country clod-hopper than any thing else."
There was a sharpness in Kate's tones that fell unpleasantly on the ears of the young man.
"Do I, indeed!" was his rather cold remark. Yet he did not change his position.
"Indeed, you do," said the wife, who was, by this time, beginning to feel a good deal of irritation; for she saw that Frederick was not inclined to respond in the way she had hoped, to her very reasonable desire that he would assume a more graceful attitude. "The fact is," she continued, impelled to further utterance by the excited state of her feelings, although she was conscious of having already said more than was agreeable to her husband, "you ought to correct yourself of these ungraceful and undignified habits. It shows a want of"—
Kate stopped suddenly. She felt that she was about using words that would inevitably give offence.
"A want of what?" inquired Lee, in a low, firm voice, while he continued to look his young wife steadily in the face.
Kate's eyes fell to the floor and she remained silent.
"Ungraceful and undignified. Humph!"
Lee was evidently hurt at this allegation, as the tone in which he repeated the words clearly showed.
"Do you call your present attitude graceful?" Kate asked, rallying herself under the reflection that she was right.