Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/224

 "You silly trout, I've a mind to boil you, and that's another fact. But no, you half-wit, it were better to dismiss you on this instant. Off, you slut, and pack your boxes and do not offend me with your face another hour."

"Oh, please, please, my lady," sobbed the simpleton falling on her knees.

"Enough of this Bab," says Miss Prue, sternly, with a fine indignation in her eyes. "Leave the poor creature be. She says she couldn't help herself, and I'm here to vouch it. I fetched it out of her like anything, for she's but a woman after all. Bab, drop it; do you hear me?"

The rogue slapped his hand upon the table with the grandeur of an emperor. Thereupon I rated her the more soundly for her fault. The miserable Emblem first looked at her champion, and then at me in the most piteous manner. Thereat Miss Prue's countenance became a blaze of anger.

"Damn it, Bab," says she, "if you only were a man!"

In the effort to contain her wrath she went striding up and down the room. Suddenly she dealt a vicious kick at a Sheraton what-not, inlaid with pearl, that was worth as much as the blood-*money on her head, brought it down in pieces, and smashed to atoms a priceless china vase. Then she turned on me.

"Bab, you are a perfect brute!" and then said to Emblem, softly, "Poor wench! But don't you fret, my dear, for I will see you are not hurt."