Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/128

 blow had been too strong and unexpected; the girl uttered a faint cry, at which we all clapped our hands in high glee.

"Ah! you are mewing are you," said the boy excited, and he immediately gave her another and much stronger slap. The girl uttered a shriller cry, at which we all capered for joy, in a kind of wild dance.

All at once my friend's eldest sister, a girl of 18, appeared arm in arm with the young man to whom she was engaged, at one end of the flowery path. On the other outlet we saw an old aunt—a prim, gaunt, weazened, methodistic spinster, a real methusalah in petticoats—who had always looked upon us as a hellish brood.

Fancy how sheepish, and crestfallen we looked as we held our little pizzles in our hand, and pissed as high as we possibly could.

My friend was whipped before us, we—his guests—were sent home in disgrace.

I was soundly, thrashed by my father, lengthily lectured to by my aunt, then scolded by my nurse.

She told me that my hands would wither