"Do sit up straight, Frederick! Do take your leg from over the arm of that chair! You make me so nervous that I can hardly contain myself."
"Really! I thought a man was privileged to sit in any position he pleased in his own house."
The excitement of Kate's mind had, by this time, reached a crisis. Bursting into tears, she hurried from the room, and went sobbing up to her chamber.
Here was a fine state of affairs, indeed! Was ever a man so perverse and unreasonable?
Did Frederick Lee follow, quickly, his weeping wife? No; his pride was too deeply wounded for that.
"A country clod-hopper! Undignified and ungraceful! Upon my word!" Such were some of his mental ejaculations. And then, as his feelings grew excited, he started up from his chair and began pacing the floor, muttering, as he did so—
"It is rather late in the day to make this discovery! Why didn't she find it out before? Humph!"
Meanwhile, Kate had thrown herself across her bed, where she lay, weeping bitterly.
What a storm had suddenly been blown about their ears!
It was fully an hour before Frederick Lee's disturbed feelings began to run at all clear. He was both surprised and offended. What could all this mean? What had all at once come over his young wife?