“Do not hold me, Lucy,” said her father; “I must certainly put her out of the room.”
“Don't, papa,” replied Lucy, restraining him from laying hands upon her, “don't, for the sake of honor and manhood. Alice, for heaven's sake! if you love me, as I said, and I now add, if you respect me, leave the room. You will provoke papa past endurance.”
“Not a single toe, miss, till he promises to let you cut o' this match. Oh, my good man,” she said, addressing the struggling baronet, “if you're for fighting, here I am I for you; or wait,” she added, whipping up one of the pistols, “Come, now, if you're a man; take your ground there. Now I can meet you on equal terms; get to the corner there, the distance is short enough; but no matther, you're a good mark. Come, now, don't think I'm the bit of goods to be afeard o' you—it's not the first jewel I've seen in my time, and remember that my name is Mahon”—and she posted herself in the corner, as if to take her ground. “Come, now,” she repeated, “you called me a 'brazen jade' awhile ago, and I demand satisfaction.”
“Alice,” said Lucy, “you will injure yourself or others, if you do not lay that dangerous weapon down. For God's sake, Alice, lay it aside—it is loaded.”
“Deuce a bit o' danger, miss,” replied the indignant heroine. “I know more about fire-arms than you think; my brothers used to have them to protect the house. I'll soon see, at any rate, whether it's loaded or not.”
While speaking she whipped out the ramrod, and, making the experiment found, that it was empty.
“Ah,” she exclaimed, “you desateful old tyrant: and so you came down blusterin' and bullyin', and frightenin' your child into compliance, with a pair of empty pistols! By the life in my body, if I had you in Ballytrain, I'd post you.”
“Papa,” said Lucy, “you must excuse this—it is the excess of her affection for me. Dear Alice,” she said, addressing her, and for a moment forgetting her weakness, “come with me; I cannot, and will not bear this; come with me out of the room.”
“Very well; I'll go to plaise you, miss, but I've made up my mind that this marriage mustn't take place. Just think of it,” she added, turning to her master; “if you force her to marry this scamp of a lord, the girl has sense, and spirit, and common decency, and of course she'll run away from him; after that, it won't be hard to guess who she'll run to—then there'll be a con. crim. about it, and it'll go to the lawyers, and from the lawyers it'll go to the deuce, and that will be the end of it; and all because you're a coarse-minded tyrant, unworthy of having such a daughter. Oh, you needn't shake your hand at me. You refused to give me satisfaction, and I'd now scorn to notice you. Remember I cowed you, and for that reason never pretend to be a gentleman afther this.”
Lucy then led her out of the room, which she left, after turning upon her master a look of the proudest and fiercest defiance, and at the same time the most sovereign contempt.