ith her mouth,
eyes, and especially her ears, wide-open.

From Maggie then--long afterwards--I learned the details.

My father sat down after smiting the table, gasped once or twice; pulled
off and wiped his spectacles; put them on again, and, laying strong
constraint on himself, read the whole through, aloud, and without a
word of comment till he reached the end, when he
ejaculated--"in-con-ceivable!" laid the letter down, and, looking up,
glared at the cat. As that creature took no notice of him he
incontinently flung his napkin at it, and swept it off the table. Then
he gave vent to a prolonged "wh-sh!" burst into a fiendish laugh, and
gave a slap to his thigh that shattered the cat's peace of mind for the
remainder of that morning, after which he re-opened the letter, spread
it carefully out on the table, and, in the most intensely cynical tones,
began a disjointed commentary on it as follows:--

"Your `dear father,' indeed! That's the first piece of humbug in your
precious letter. Very `dear' I am to you, no doubt. And _you_--you--a
chit--a mere boy (he forgot that several years had elapsed since I left
him). Oh! no--I'm neither surprised nor displeased--not at all. The
state of my mind is not to be expressed by such phraseology--by no
means! And you were always such a smooth-faced, quiet little beggar
that--well--no matter. `Couldn't help it!' indeed. H'm. `Quite a
lady!' Oh! of _course_. Necessarily so, when you condescended to fall
in love with her! `Humility!' well! `Given up the service,' too!
`Colorado!' `One of the wildest parts'--as if a tame part wouldn't have
done just as well! A `farmer!' Much _you_ know about farming! You
don't tell all this `defiantly.' Oh! no, certainly not, but if you
don't _do_ it defiantly, I have misunderstood the meaning of the word
self-will till I am bald. Why didn't you `consult' me, then? Much
_you_ care for my blessing--and `the thing is fixed!'"

Exasperation was too much developed at this point to permit of blowing
off steam in the form of sarcastic remark. My poor father hit the table
with such force that the cream spurted out of its pot over the cloth--
and my father didn't care! The cat cared, however, when, at a later
period, it had the cleaning up of that little matter all to itself!
This last explosion caused so much noise--my cousin told me--as to
attract the attention of my father's only domestic, who bounced into the
room and asked, "di