“Ha! ha! ha! _Mrs. Bruce_ will consent! I’ll swear to that! And if you have half the influence with your mother that I have with Mrs. Bruce, _she’ll_ consent. If she does not I’ll try my ‘’prentice hand’ at persuasion, and it will go hard but she shall give you up to me,” chuckled the old man. “As for _myself_, uncle, you know that your will has always been my law,” said the lady. “Oh, I know it; I know it, my dear,” said the commodore. “And now, little one,” he continued, turning to Em., “go and take a run in the grounds. Too much house is not good for little girls. I want to talk with my sister-in-law.” Em. turned to her employer for direction. “Come! Run away! run away!” exclaimed the veteran. “Do as you are bidden,” loftily commanded Mrs. Bruce. “SCAT!” stamped the commodore. Em. laughed and ran out. “Now, then, madam, what the demon does all this mean?” demanded the commodore. “All what mean? I don’t understand,” replied Mrs. Bruce. “Oh, yes, you do. Yesterday you could not, any of you, be too kind to that poor girl. To-day you, all of you, so overwhelmed the child with your studied coldness and contempt that she looked as if she were going to expire at the lunch-table. I could scarcely stand it myself, and so, to counteract the effect of your combined rudeness, I was obliged to be obtrusively attentive to Miss Palmer. I knew perfectly well when I saw you leave the lunch-table and order that girl to follow you to your room you were sharpening your claws and whetting your teeth and licking your chops in anticipation of a meal off her!” “Commodore Bruce! What MONSTROUS ideas you have!” exclaimed the horrified lady. “Am I a vampire, or a cannibal?” “Well, yes; in some sense you are. I do not mean to say that, having lunched on chicken-pie, cold ham and custard, you are going to dine on Em. immediately. No, but you were going to glut your pride and surfeit your anger and satisfy your selfishness on her, all the same, which is a wickeder sort of cannibalism than the other, since it devours the spirit. That child has most innocently offended you all. Now I want to know in what manner. And I _will_ know; for while I am captain of this ship—master of this house, I mean—no woman shall be treated with coldness and cruelty while under my roof, and especially when at my table. Come.” “Well, uncle, since you _will_ have it, I acknowledge that Miss Palmer _has_ offended me—has offended us all; therefore I really do not think that you should keep her here as you propose to do, or that you will keep her when you have heard all about her.” “I’ll be shot to death if I don’t,” said the commodore. “But how has that harmless girl offended you? By her beauty, grace and sweetness? I know of no other cause. In what way has she offended you, I ask?” “In a way that would have offended any woman with a proper sense of modesty and decorum.” “But by what _means_? By what _means_?” impatiently demanded the veteran.