If Ariana had not been dependent she would have been less saucy, but so fearful was she of becoming cringing from interested motives, that she went to the other extreme, and dared
“To beard the lion in his den.”
The brother-in-law could no more dispense with her racy society, than with pungent sauces for his piscatory favorites. Instead of becoming angry when Ariana declared that she had seen too much of men at home ever to marry, he was heartily glad of a determination which insured the continuance under his roof of his merry antagonist.
Never was married woman so wretched herself that she discouraged matrimony among her young relatives and friends. Scarcely were the Dormers seated at dinner, and the first outbreak of invectives against cook, waiter and market-woman at an end, than the meek Harriet remarked, with an attempt at the playfulness for which she was distinguished before broken to the hymenial yoke: “Ariana, you had better have the ham placed before you, that you may learn to carve, as I suspect from the visit which you received this morning that you will soon be at the head of your own table.”
Mr. Dormer checked the grimace by which he was expressing disgust at the over-done mutton before him, and stared, but ventured not a question.
“Never more mistaken in your life, sister. Mr. Dormer cannot spare me,” was Ariana’s laughing reply; “he would burst a blood-vessel in one of his fury-fits, if I were not here to soothe him.”
“Am I such a tyrant then?” asked Mr. Dormer, in nearly as humble a tone as his wife would have used.
“A very despot; but not worse at heart than most men. There is scarcely one who does not revenge himself for the rude world’s buffetings, by inflicting all sorts of petty annoyances upon those at home,” was the calm reply.
“You will certainly be an old maid, Ariana,” remarked Mrs. Dormer, as she cast a furtive glance at the engrossing object of all her thoughts.
“A consummation devoutly to be wished,” said Ariana, smiling at the fearful tone in which the remark was made. “I had rather be caged in a menagerie, than obliged from morning to night to listen to the growling of a human tiger.”