“Your girl! By my soul, Governor, I shall end in falling seriously in love with that girl! I didn’t fancy her much at first to tell you the truth! She was entirely too good humored—always laughing. And I had a fancy for marrying a shrew, just for the spicy fun of taming one! The same instinct, Governor, that makes me like to spring upon the back of the most vicious horse I can find, and ride and lash and spur and fatigue the soul out of his body, until I break his back or his temper, one—eh, Governor?” The old man’s florid cheeks became pale with rage, and he felt an impulse to kick the puppy out, but a terrible necessity tied his tongue and hands, and Charles Cabell went on laughing and talking to this effect:— “Now, then, having a fancy to marry and tame a shrew—real live, vicious, beautiful vixen—I did not want the spiciest part of the sport taken out of my hands by fathers and mothers and pastors and masters. I shouldn’t have thanked any of you for presenting me with a model wife, already smoothed down and polished to my hand. D—n your pretty pieces of perfection! I’ll none of them—flat, insipid nonentities!—formed and _re_-formed, and modelled, and _re_-modelled, and rubbed down and polished until they all look as much alike as beads on a string! No, none of your polished gems for Charles Cabell!—the bright, pure, rough, sharp ore! Now, of Zuleime, I thought her far too much educated—too good humored, too polite, too docile, too much of the young ‘lady,’ too little of the wild young animal—and flat and insipid in consequence; so I cared very little about her. But, ha, ha, ha! I never was more mistaken in my life! She’s a prize, I tell you! A prize of the first class! Look you! I coveted a shrew! I’ve found a virago! full of blood and fire! strong and vicious, I tell you! ha, ha, ha! Think of her dashing her little hand in my face when I went to kiss her, and before I recovered my eyesight and senses, throwing me off as if I had been a child, and escaping! Ha, ha, ha! I under-estimated her strength!—Never mind! let the little tigress look out for the next time I get her in my arms!” The old man’s bosom was filled to bursting with suppressed passion, but he answered, calmly— “Oh! she’s young—she’s young, a spoiled child—a spoiled child; be patient with her—she means well—give her time—be patient with her.”