Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/214

 Swear by your beards and the god of thunder, and none of us shall say you nay, for there is not a petticoat among us can resist you. This method, then, I clapped upon my aunt, and now look you to the sequel.

"The matter is just this, dear aunt," says I. "What about prim old Dame Propriety? I would have you think of her, dear aunt. There is not a female of us all can afford to disregard her."

I pinned such a steady eye upon my aunt that shortly her high look drooped and was replaced by an ugly one of baffled rage. How fortunate I had ingenuity enough to hold that cat's paw! 'Twould have scratched me else, and badly.

"What will the world say, auntie dear?" I asked. "A word of this in town and the particular family to which you have the condescension to belong will be derided by the world. My Lady Clapper will live upon it for a fortnight. Your very dear friend, Mrs. Saywell, will dispense it regularly with her new bohea and dish it up hotter than her muffins, and feed every insatiable man in Mayfair on it. Nor will they find it indigestible as her buttered crumpets either. A word, dear aunt, and the whole bench of Bishops will preach a sermon on it, and send all your presentation stoles and slippers back greatly discoloured with their tears. We shall be afflicted with the exultation of our enemies and, worse a hundred times, the commiseration of our friends. Will you not reflect, dear auntie?"

For the dear lady to reflect was quite unneces