"I know that, and have cut him accordingly; but, Cousin John, there is some reason for your words, that you have not expressed; and as they concern me, now I insist upon knowing what they are!" "Tut! it is nothing!" said the other evasively. "John Stone, I know better! And the more you look down and whip your boot the surer I am that there is something I ought to know, and I will know!" "Well, you termagant! Have your way! He has been speaking lightly of you--that's all! Nobody minds him--his tongue is no scandal." "John Stone--what has he said?" asked Capitola, drawing her breath hardly between her closed teeth. "Oh, now, why should you ask? It is nothing--it is not proper that I should tell you," replied that gentleman, in embarrassment. "'It is nothing,' and yet 'it is not proper that you should tell me!' How do you make that out? John Stone, leave off lashing the harmless bushes and listen to me! I have to live in the same neighborhood with this man, after you have gone away, and I insist upon knowing the whole length and breadth of his baseness and malignity, that I may know how to judge and punish him!" said Capitola, with such grimness of resolution that Mr. Stone, provoked at her perversity, answered: "Well, you wilful girl, listen!" And commencing, he mercilessly told her all that had passed at the table. To have seen our Cap then! Face, neck and bosom were flushed with the crimson tide of indignation! "You are sure of what you tell me, Cousin John?" "The man vouches for it!" "He shall bite the dust!" "What?" "The slanderer shall bite the dust!" Without more ado, down was thrown gun, game bag, powder flask and shot-horn, and, bounding from point to point over all the intervening space, Capitola rushed into Hurricane Hall, and without an instant's delay ran straight into the parlor, where her epicurean friend, the young Creole, lay slumbering upon the lounge. With her face now livid with concentrated rage, and her eyes glittering with that suppressed light peculiar to intense passion, she stood before him and said: "Edwin! Craven Le Noir has defamed your cousin! Get up and challenge him!" "What did you say, Cap?" said Mr. Percy, slightly yawning. "Must I repeat it? Craven Le Noir has defamed my character--challenge him!" "That would be against the law, coz; they would indict me sure!" "You--you--you lie there and answer me in that way! Oh that I were a man!" "Compose yourself, sweet coz, and tell me what all this is about! Yaw-ooo!--really I was asleep when you first spoke to me!" "Asleep! Had you been dead and in your grave, the words that I spoke should have roused you like the trump of the archangel!" exclaimed Capitola, with the blood rushing back to her cheeks. "Your entrance was sufficiently startling, coz, but tell me over again--what was the occasion?"