This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a window-pane in a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all her oratory, working his arm, which she clung to, up and down all the time, like the handle of a pump. But Dudley was, manifestly, confounded and dumbfoundered. He stood for a long time gaping at his father, and stole just one sheepish glance at me; and, with red face and forehead, looked down at his boots, and then again at his father, who remained just in the attitude I have described, and with the same forbidding and dreary intensity in his strange face. Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley suddenly woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exasperation, and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked involuntarily into a chair, with more violence than could have been pleasant. 'Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate your answers,' said my uncle, addressing him suddenly. 'Will you be good enough--pray, madame (parenthetically to our visitor), command yourself for a few moments. Is this young person the daughter of a Mr. Mangles, and is her name Sarah Matilda?' 'I dessay,' answered Dudley, hurriedly. 'Is she your wife?' 'Is she my wife?' repeated Dudley, ill at ease. 'Yes, sir; it is a plain question.' All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into talk, and with difficulty silenced by my uncle. 'Well, 'appen she says I am--does she?' replied Dudley. 'Is she your wife, sir?' 'Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,' he replied, with an impudent swagger, seating himself as he did so. 'What do _you_ think, sir?' persisted Uncle Silas. 'I don't think nout about it,' replied Dudley, surlily. 'Is that account true?' said my uncle, handing him the paper. 'They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.' 'Answer directly, sir. We have our thoughts upon it. If it be true, it is capable of _every_ proof. For expedition's sake I ask you. There is no use in prevaricating.' 'Who wants to deny it? It _is_ true--there!' '_There!_ I knew he would,' screamed the young woman, hysterically, with a laugh of strange joy. 'Shut up, will ye?' growled Dudley, savagely. 'Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?' 'Bin and ruined me, jest--that's all.' 'Oh! no, no, no, Dudley. Ye know I wouldn't. I could not--_could_ not hurt ye, Dudley. No, no, no!' He grinned at her, and, with a sharp side-nod, said-- 'Wait a bit.' 'Oh, Dudley, don't be vexed, dear. I did not mean it. I would not hurt ye for all the world. Never.' 'Well, never mind. You and yours tricked me finely; and now you've got me--that's all.' My uncle laughed a very odd laugh. 'I knew it, of course; and upon my word, madame, you and he make a very pretty couple,' sneered Uncle Silas. Dudley made no answer, looking, however, very savage. And with this poor young wife, so recently wedded, the low villain had actually solicited me to marry him!