"But hear the rest," said he, and read on:—
"From what you say of her tinge of African blood and other charming traits, I have constructed this portrait of the future Mrs. Bratley Chylde, as the Hottentot Venus. Behold it!"
And Mellasys held up a highly colored caricature, covering one whole side of my friend's sheet.
Saccharissa rose from the sofa where she had been sitting during the whole of my trial.
She stood before me,—really I cannot deny it,—a little, ugly, vulgar figure, overloaded with finery, and her laces and ribbons trembled with rage.
She seemed not to be able to speak, and, by way of relieving herself of her overcharge of wrath, smote me several times on either ear with that pudgy hand I had so often pressed in mine or tenderly kissed.
At this exhibition of a resentment I can hardly deem feminine, the Fire-Eaters roared with laughter and cheered her to continue. A circle of negroes also, at the window, expressed their amusement at the scene in the guttural manner of their race.
I could not refrain from tears at these unhappy exhibitions on the part of my betrothed. They augured ill for the harmony of our married life.
"Hit him again, Rissy! he's got no friends," that vulgar Plickaman urged.
She again advanced, seized me by the hair, and shook me with greater muscular force than I should have expected of one of her indolent habits. Delicacy for her sex of course forbade my offering resistance; and besides, there were my two sentries, roaring with vulgar laughter, but holding their pistols with a most unpleasant accuracy of aim at my head.