I did not wait to hear any more for, to quote Burbidge, "the less of a disagreeable you mind, the better for your supper," but I went straight into the house. I went up the old newel stairs and found Bess on the floor of the nursery. The whole room resounded with her angry cries. "Horrid slug, stupid snail," and other words of opprobrium I heard in quick reiteration. She kicked, screamed, and vowed she hated everybody and everything, with a furious, scarlet face. Even old Nana did not escape her abuse. There was nothing to be done but to put Bess to bed, and tell her that there she must remain till I could forgive her, and let her get up again. "I hate you, mother!" she cried in a shower of tears. "When I'm rich I'll buy a new mother." And as I closed the door an angry little voice called out, "I'd sell you all for sixpence; you're all horrid, horrid!" I tried to seek peace with my crewels and my needle, and bethought myself of the bunch of anemones which in haste I had thrown upon a table in the chapel hall. But peace that day might not be mine. War, black war, seemed to have set in in all parts of my demesne. Célestine bounced in like a whirlwind of discord and fury. [Sidenote: VOICES OF DISCORD] "Cette odieuse femme! Cet animal empesté!" by which civil terms she alluded to the old housekeeper, who had done something unpardonable; "mais j'aurai ma place quand même." Then followed a string of incoherent abuse. A second afterwards, Mrs. Langdale appeared, took up the tale, and vindicated her honour and position. The two women glared at each other like wild cats, and set to work to abuse each other roundly, each in her own mother tongue. Célestine spoke in high southern French, breathless, scarlet, her eyes burning like live coals, whilst Mrs. Langdale screamed shrilly in angry Shropshire tones. Our old housekeeper does not generally speak in her native dialect, but in moments of excitement she takes to it as to her native element. Her voice ran up like the women's of the west, and she trembled with fury as she called forth judgments on foreigners, "furies, and such like good-for-nothing losellers and vagrants." So great was their indignation and so near did they approach each other in passion, that I feared they must come to blows; but at last they vanished, vowing vengeance, and filling the monks' passage with cries of discord. The _causa belli_ was difficult to discover, but there seemed to have been a disagreement over a towel, a bit of soap, and some key of a cupboard. Anyway, what was wanting in wit, was fully made up by wrath. How eloquent, at least how voluble, two furious women of the lower classes can be, like Shakespeare's women, in their flights of rage. With us the power of vituperation is a power of the past. We control ourselves and our anger smoulders in our hearts, but rarely flies forth in a whirlwind of words.