Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/211

 his breakfast; and ten minutes since I saw him in the morning room teaching my Lady Grimstone's polly-parrot to swear like anything."

"Oh," says I, "a very pretty occupation to be sure. Here, girl, put me in my déshabille, and let me be upon him ere he's at a further mischief. Quick, wench, or next we shall have him teaching hymns to my papa."

Half an hour hence I went downstairs to keep a personal eye upon him. I had not been there five minutes when my aunt's maid, Tupper, came in and said that her mistress required my presence in her room immediately. As the message was so peremptory I dallied some five-and-twenty minutes longer than I need, for I think that persons of an elderly habit should never be encouraged in their arbitrary courses. Had I only foreseen what lay in store when I obeyed this summons, I should have taken my muff and tippet with me to protect myself from frostbite. You may have seen an iceberg clad in all its severities of snow, sitting in a temperature that makes you shiver. If you have had this felicity you have also seen my aunt, the dowager, this wintry morning. She smiled a December sun-*glint when she saw me.

"Barbara, good morning," she began.

"Good morning, ma'am," says I, and curtsied.

"I trust you are very well," my aunt says.

"Very well indeed, ma'am," I answered modestly. I'll confess a little nerve-twitch. 'Twas a charming idiosyncrasy of my aunt's that she only