This is a sufficient sample of her style, and not the worst. I am constrained to confess that some portions of the good lady's language would better have suited the modes of speech common enough among the Grecian housekeepers at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. I have omitted not a few of the bad words, and forborne the repetition of that voluminous eloquence poured out, after the Billingsgate fashion, equally upon myself, her daughter, and husband. During the vituperation she still kicked and scuffled; my face suffered, and my eyes narrowly escaped. But I grasped her firmly; and when her husband, my worthy uncle, in obedience to her orders, sprang upon me, with the bludgeon which he now habitually carried, I confronted him with the lusty person of his spouse, and regret to say, that the first thwack intended for my shoulders, descended with some considerable emphasis upon hers. This increased her fury, and redoubled her screams. But it did not lessen my determination, or make me change my mode of proceeding. I resolutely pushed her before me. The husband stood at the head of the stairs and my object was to carry her down to the lower story. The stairs were narrow, and by keeping up a good watch, I contrived to force him to give ground, using his spouse as a sort of battering-RAM--not to perpetrate a pun at the expense of the genders--which, I happened to know, had always been successful in making him give ground on all previous occasions. His habitual deference for the dame, assisted me in my purpose. Step by step, however, he disputed my advance; but I was finally successful; without any injury beyond that which had been inflicted by the talons of the fair lady, and perhaps a single and slight stroke upon the shoulder from the club of her husband, I succeeded in landing her upon the lower flat in safety. Beyond a squeeze or two, which the exigency of the case made something more affectionate than any I should have been otherwise pleased to bestow upon her, she suffered no hurt at my hands. But, though willing to release her, she was not so willing herself to be released. When I set her free, she flew at me with cat-like intrepidity; and I found her a much more difficult customer than her husband. Him I soon baffled. A moment sufficed to grapple with him and wrench the stick from his hands, and then, with a moderate exercise of agility, I contrived to spring up the stairway which I had just descended, regain the chamber, and secure the door, before they could overtake or annoy me with their further movements. My wife's aunt, meanwhile, had been busy with her restoratives. Julia was now recovering from the fainting fit; and I had the satisfaction of hearing from one of the servants that the baffled enemy had gone off in a fury that made their departure seem a flight rather than a mere retreat.