"Tom, your language is disgraceful," cried her ladyship. "It is as low and disrespectful as that of the people in the street." "I wish your treatment of your children were half as good. Here's every shilling a fellow wants screwed out, till I feel as if I should like to enlist; and as for Maudey here, you've treated her as if she were a piece of sculpture, to be sold to the highest bidder. I suppose she has not got a heart." "Lord Barmouth!" exclaimed her ladyship, faintly, as she lay back in her chair, and lavishly used her smelling-salts, "if one of my brothers had spoken to dear mamma as that boy speaks to me, dear papa would have felled him to the earth." "There you are, gov'nor, there's your chance," said Tom, grinning. "Come and knock me down, but don't bruise your knuckles, for my head's as hard as iron." Lord Barmouth took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his hands upon it, not noticing that it was stained with gravy, gazing in a troubled way from wife to son, and back, and then crossed to the former to say something in a whisper, to which her ladyship replied-- "Pshaw." "Thank you, Tom," whispered Tryphie, as he went to the window where she stood. "I did not think you could stand up so bravely for your sister, and be so true." "Didn't you?" said Tom, sulkily. "It's a good job I can be true, for I don't believe there's a spark of truth anywhere else in the world. If Charley had had the spirit of a fly, he'd have come and walked her off. Hang it all! I'm mad and savage. Pretty sort of a husband you've got for her. Pretty sort of a brother-in-law to have! I'm ashamed of him. I'm only a little one, and nothing to boast of, but he's no better than a pantaloon. Truth indeed! There isn't such a thing in the world." "Oh, Tom!" whispered Tryphie. "More there isn't," cried Tom. "Pretty brother-in-law indeed!" "Maude," exclaimed her ladyship, "I think you might have a word to say on behalf of your intended husband." The girl glanced at her in a stony way, and turned once more to the window, where she had been looking out with Tryphie, listening with aching heart to the encounter between mother and son. "Such a brilliant match as I have made," cried her ladyship, harping on her old string. "And such opposition as I have from the girl who owes me so much." "Indeed, mamma, I have yielded everything. You are having your own way entirely," said Maude passionately. "Have I not saved you from throwing yourself away upon a disreputable creature?" sobbed her ladyship. "Tryphie," whispered Maude, "I cannot bear this. It is dreadful. I feel as if I should go mad." "He saw plainly enough," whined her ladyship, "that it could not be-- that it would have been a complete _misalliance_." "This is unbearable," whispered Maude, clasping her cousin's hand, which pressed hers warmly and encouragingly, as they stood in the window recess, half screened by the heavy curtains. "Try not to listen, dear," whispered Tryphie.