As the good lady, who had by this time got the steam up to a very high degree of pressure, hazarded the above uncomfortable suggestion, Annie, who had been listening with an expression of painful annoyance to her aunt’s harangue, suddenly turned pale and glanced with a look of appealing inquiry towards her father, who replied to her rather than to Miss Livingstone in the following terms:-- “Really, my dear Annie, I am compelled to say that the fears with which your excellent relative” (and he looked bayonets at Minerva, who shook her head till her terrific cap rustled like an angry hailstorm) “would seek to inspire you are utterly without foundation.” He paused, took a pinch of snuff viciously, as though it were gunpowder and he was priming himself for a fresh discharge; and thus prepared he turned to Lewis, saying--but we will reserve the volley for another chapter. CHAPTER XVII.--CONTAINS MUCH FOLLY AND A LITTLE COMMON SENSE. “The truth of the matter is this, Mr. Arundel,” began General Grant. “From a mistaken policy your future pupil has been indulged in every caprice of his weak intellect, till the slightest opposition to his wishes irritates him beyond all control that has yet been exercised over him; but as his only attendants are an old female domestic who was his nurse, and her son, a lad younger than Sir Walter himself, whom he has been foolishly permitted to look upon in the light of a companion, this is not so much to be wondered at.” “It will be a difficult task to eradicate faults of temper which have been allowed to become habitual, especially where the reasoning faculties are defective,” observed Lewis thoughtfully. “You may well say that, sir,” chimed in Miss Livingstone. “His reasoning faculties (as you please to term them) are so _defective_, that in my humble opinion the boy is neither more nor less than a fool; and you may as well try to drive a pig straight as to talk sense to a fool. But how a man so particular as General Grant can have brought such an inmate into his family, and then expect that things are to go on with the order and precision that----”