Decided sensation in the orchestra-seats, and even on the stage, where Mrs. Florence paused in the middle of one of her most effective Yankeeisms, to know what caused the interruption. Sensation in a good many fingers, that they would like to be applied violently to the ears of the man who could speak in that manner to so sweet-looking a girl, no matter under what provocation. A few hisses and cries of "Hush-h-h!" "Hush-h-h!" Poor Emily had sunk back in her chair, the moment her anxiety was relieved by mortification, merely saying in a pleading voice, as if to disarm her tyrant: "Oh, father!" Frank Wallace, meanwhile, had sprung to his feet, the moment the opprobrious epithet was applied to him; and though he distinctly saw that the intruder was the puissant Judge Owen, Emily's father, and large enough, physically, to eat him for lunch--he was on the point of springing across the intervening space and giving him a taste of his gymnastic quality. This would have been terribly improper, no doubt, towards a man much older than himself, and the father of the girl he yet hoped one day to make his wife; but the spectators, had he done so, and could they have known all the facts of the case, would have been much more likely to forgive him than the miserable hound (now a miserable secessionist--thank Heaven for his choice!) who bore a military title to his name, a few years ago, and sat still in one of the theatres of this city, without daring to lift a hand in opposition, while the just-married wife by his side was brutally caned by her millionaire father for daring to marry _him_! High temper may be dangerous, and the rough hand something to be avoided and reprobated; but there is something worse in the extreme opposite, and humanity worse sickens at the sight of an abject poltroon, than at any other worthless fungus that springs as an excrescence from God's footstool. All the saints be praised for these little women! They _are_, after all, the balance-wheels of life, and the whole machinery would run riot and go to destruction without them. They bring us to ourselves, often, and so save us _from_ ourselves. When they advise peace and patience, they are generally right, for at such times violence is seldom politic. Frank Wallace would probably have carried out his violent first intention, but for the hand of Emily which dropped upon his arm almost before he had risen, and the soft voice which spoke in his ear, very hurriedly: "Don't, Frank, for _my_ sake! Let me go, and sit still. You shall see me again in a day or two. _I'll_ pay Pa for this!" Very much consoled by these words, and especially by the last clause, Frank Wallace resumed his seat, merely indulging in a remark which was heard by many around him, and which may or may not have been heard by the person at whom it was aimed: "Bah! you big brute!"