Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/168

 CHAPTER X.

I PLAY CATHERINE TO MR. DARE'S PETRUCHIO.

It was our custom at Cleeby to sit down to the evening meal at seven o'clock. We held supper a function in our country day. Then it was that the Earl, my heroical papa, gout or no gout, would grace the table with his embroidered presence, and ogle his daughter, or his sister-in-law the ancient Caroline. This rather than his eyes, once so bright and fatal, should vainly spend their waning lustres on a stolid dish or an unresponsive spoon. The poor vamped-up old gentleman, with that monumental vanity of man that we women feed for our private ends, would not admit, even to himself, that though this dog had once enjoyed his day, that day now was over. He might be condemned to death; the wrinkles might strike through his powder; he might be toothless, doddering, with a weak action of the heart, and his age in a nice proportion to his crimes; he might be propt up in a back-strap and a pair of stays, the completest and most ghastly wreck in fact you ever set your eyes upon—that is before his man had wound him up and set him going for the day—but he would never admit that he was old,