"Nobody _need_ to ask me, next time!" was the rejoinder. "I have a right to be killed, if I please, and it is none of your business whether I am or not. A pretty world it would be, with half of it made up of women too weak and too cowardly to fight a cat, and the other half of men tied fast of their apron strings, so that they had to ask every time they wanted to go away, just as one of your little whelps of school-boys whines: 'Please to let me go out!'" Kitty Hood was finding a tongue quite as sharp as her own, by this time, and the effect was very much what is often seen in corresponding cases. Finding her lover growing as angry as herself, and a little more violent, the young school-mistress concluded that it was time to assume a less decided demeanor, so that if they must part they might do so without an absolute quarrel. "Well, Dick," she said, after a moment of pause, "there is no use of your being angry about it!" Just as if she had not been showing ill-temper from the beginning--the minx! "Of course I cannot hold you, and do not wish to do so, if you prefer dressing yourself up in that ridiculous manner and standing up to be shot at, to remaining here with _me_." "I don't _prefer_ it, you know I don't, Kitty!" said Dick, aware that his flank of conversation had once more been turned and himself placed in a false position. But here came an interruption. A young gentleman of seven made his appearance in the door of the school-room, his hands blacker than the proverbial ace-of-spades, his nether raiments spotted, and his face drawn into a most comical whimper, while his words came out between a sob and a hiccough: "Please, Miss Hood, won't you come in to Jem Stephenson? He has gone and upsot the inkstand all over my hands and spoilt my new trowsers!" "Go in and keep your seat, you young villain, or I shall flog you and Jem Stephenson both!" was the consoling assurance with which the "young villain" departed; while the hum from the school-room was evidently increasing, and the young school-mistress felt that she must indeed soon resume the reins of government if she was not to be permanently left without a realm worth ruling. But she took time to rejoin to Compton's last assertion. "I don't know any thing of the kind. I say that if you thought half as much of me as you did of public opinion and making a show of your fine new clothes, you would not stir one step." "Now, Kitty, do be reasonable--" again began Compton. "Look at other people--don't _they_ respect the wishes of those they expect to marry?" the young lady went on, not heeding his last attempt. "See--there is Carlton Brand--who does not know that he has remained at home ever since the war broke out, though he could have been a Colonel and perhaps even a General--just because he was really in love with Margaret Hayley, and she did not wish him to leave her?"