'This was a bit of news,' he continued, 'which I did not take quite so kindly as I ought, mayhap, to have done, it not appertaining to a son to have the upper hand of his mother. But, having been, from the first, somewhat of a spoilt child, whereby my poor mother made herself plenty of trouble; I was always rather over choleric when I was contradicted. Taking it, therefore, rather amiss her going out of old England, no great matter of letter-writing passed between us from that time, to my return to my native land. 'It was then I was told the worst tiding that ever I wish to hear! one came, and t'other came, and all had some fuel to make the fire burn fiercer, to give me an item that Lord Granville had over-persuaded my sister to elope with him; and that she died of a broken heart; leaving a child, that my mother, for my sister's reputation's sake, had gone to bring up in foreign parts. My blood boiled so, then, in my veins, that how it ever got cool enough not to burn me to a cinder is a main wonder. But I vowed revenge, and that, I take it, sustained me; revenge being, to my seeming, a noble passion, when it is not to spite those who have done an ill turn to ourselves, but to punish those who have oppressed the helpless. What aggravated me the more, was hearing that he was married; and had two fine children, who were dawdled about every day in his coach; while the child of my poor sister was shut up, immured, no body knew where, in an outlandish country. I called him, therefore, to account, and bid him meet me, at five o'clock in the morning, at a coffee-house. We went into a private room. I used no great matter of ceremony in coming to the point. You have betrayed, I cried, the unprotected! You have seduced the forlorn! You have sold yourself to the devil!--and as you have given him, of your own accord, your soul, I am come to lend a hand to your giving him your body.'-- 'Shocking!--Shocking!' interrupted Juliet. 'O my uncle!'-- 'Why it was not over mannerly, I own; but I was too much aggrieved to stand upon complimenting. I loved her, said I, with all my heart and soul; but I bore patiently with her death, because I am a Christian; and I know that life and death come from God; but I scorn to bear with her dishonour, for that comes from a man. For the sake of your wife and children, as they are not in fault, I would conceal your unmanly baseness; but for the sake of my much injured sister, who was dearer to me than all your kin and kind, I intend, by the grace, and with the help of the Most High, to take a proper vengeance for her wrongs, by blowing out your brains; unless, by the law of chance, you should blow out mine; which, however, I should hold myself the most pitiful of cowards to expect in so just a cause. 'I then presented him my pistols, and gave him his choice which he would have.' 'Oh my poor father!' cried Juliet. 'Go on, my uncle, go on!'