"Yes, sir," said she, in a grand melodramatic tone that she always reserves for the peroration,--as postilions keep a trot for the town,--"yes, sir, I am well accustomed to your perfidy and dissimulation. I know perfectly for what infamous purposes abroad your family are treated so ignominiously at home; I'm no stranger to your doings." I tried to stop her by an appeal to common-sense; she despised it. I invoked my age,--egad! I never put my foot in it till then. That was exactly what made me the greatest villain of all! Whatever veneration attaches to white hairs, it must be owned they get mighty ill treated in discussions like the present; at least, Mrs. D. assured me so, and gave me to understand that one pays a higher premium for their morality, as they do for their life-assurance, as they grow older. "Not," added she, as her eyes glittered with anger, and she sidled near the door for an exit,--"not but, in the estimation of others, you may be quite an Adonis,--a young gentleman of wit and fashion,--a beau of the first water; I have no doubt Mary Jane thinks so,--you old wretch!" This, in all, and a bang of the door that brought down an oil picture that hung over it, closed the scene. "Mary Jane thinks so!" said I, with my hand to my temples to collect myself. Ah, Tom! it would have required a cooler head than mine was at that moment to go hunting through the old archives of memory! Nor will I torment you with even a narrative of my struggles. I passed that evening and the night in a state of half distraction; and it was only when I was giving one of our lawyers a check the next morning that I unravelled the mystery, for, as I wrote down his name, I perceived it was Marie Jean de Rastanac,--a not uncommon Christian name for men, though, considering the length and breadth of the masculine calendar; a very needless appropriation. This was "Mary Jane," then, and this the origin of as pretty a conjugal flare-up as I remember for the last twelvemonth! Mrs. D. reminds me of the Opposition, and the Opposition of Vickars. I suppose he wants to be a Lord of the Treasury. It's very like what old Frederick used to call making a "goat a gardener." What rogues the fellows are! You write to them about your son or your nephew, and they answer you with some tawdry balderdash about their principles, as if any one of us ever believed they were troubled with principles! I'm all for fair straightforward dealing. Put James in the Board of Trade, and you may cut up the Caffres for ten years to come. Give us something in the Customs, and I don't care if New Zealand never has a constitution! 'Tis only the fellows that have no families ask questions at the hustings! Show me a man that wants _pledges_ from his _representative_, and I 'll show you one that has got none from his wife!