Harry bit his lip, and struck Romeo a little quick cut with his riding-whip. Harry was one of the most dutiful of sons, and never treated his father with disrespect; he had chosen a separate home, that he might be master of it; and this old annoyance in a new shape was very provoking. "Pat," said he at length, "there is only one master here; when _I_ give you an order, you are to stick to it, till you get a different one from me. D'ye understand?" "By the Holy Mother, I'll do it," said Pat, delightedly resuming his hoe with fresh vigor. CHAPTER XVIII. "That's the fourth gig that has been tied to Harry's fence, since dinner," said the old lady. "I hope Harry's business will continue to prosper. Company, company, company. And there's Ruth, as I live, romping round that meadow, without a bit of a bonnet. Now she's climbing a cherry-tree. A _married woman_ climbing a cherry-tree! Doctor, do you hear that?" "Shoot 'em down," said the doctor, abstractedly, without lifting his eyes from the Almanac. "Shoot _who_ down?" said the old lady, shaking him by the shoulder. "I said that romp of a Ruth was up in a cherry-tree." "Oh, I thought you were talking of those thievish robins stealing the cherries," said the doctor; "as to Ruth I've given her up long ago; _she_ never will settle down to anything. Yesterday, as I was taking a walk over Harry's farm to see if things were not all going to the dogs, I saw her down in the meadow yonder, with her shoes and stockings off, wading through a little brook to get at some flowers, which grew on the other side. Half an hour after she came loitering up the road, with her bonnet hanging on the back of her neck, and her apron crammed full of grasses, and herbs, and branches, and all sorts of green trash. Just then the minister came along. I was glad of it. Good enough for her, thinks I to myself; she'll blush for once. Well, what do you think she did, Mis. Hall?" "_What?_" said the old lady, in a sepulchral whisper, dropping her knitting-needles and drawing her rocking-chair within kissing distance of the doctor. "Why, she burst out a-laughing, perched herself on top of a stone wall, took a great big leaf to fan herself, and then invited the minister to sit down 'long side of her, _jest_ as easy as if her hair wasn't all flying round her face like a wild Arab's." "I give up now," said the old lady, dropping her hands in an attitude of the extremest dejection; "there's no hope of her after that; and what is worse, it is no use talking to Harry; she's got him so bewitched that he imagines everything she does is right. How she did it, passes me. I'm sure she has no beauty. I've no patience to see Harry twisting those yellow curls of hers round his fingers, and calling them 'threads of gold;' threads of fiddlesticks! She'd look a deal more proper like, if she'd wear her hair smooth behind her ears, as I do." "But your hair is false," said the literal doctor.