I
never was before. It serves her right, for Willie told the truth. I
was sitting by and saw it all. Keep her in there an hour, will you? It
will pay her for the many times she has shut me up for nothing."

Mrs. Hamilton stamped and pushed against the door, while Lenora danced
and sang at the top of her voice:

"My dear precious mother got wrathy one day
And seized little Will by the hair;
But when in the closet she'd stow him away,
She herself was pushed headlong in there."

At length the bolt, yielding to the continued pressure of Mrs.
Hamilton's body, broke, and out came the termagant, foaming with rage.
She dared not molest Margaret, of whose physical powers she had just
received such mortifying proof, so she aimed a box at the ears of
Lenora. But the lithe little thing dodged it, and with one bound
cleared the table which sat in the center of the room, landing safely
on the other side; and then, shaking her short, black curls at her
mother, she said, "You didn't come it, that time, my darling."

Mr. Hamilton, who chanced to be absent for a few days, was, on his
return, regaled with an exaggerated account of the proceeding, his
wife ending her discourse by saying: "If you don't do something with
your upstart daughter I'll leave the house; yes, I will."

Mr. Hamilton was cowardly. He was afraid of his wife, and he was
afraid of Mag. So he tried to compromise the matter by promising the
one that he surely would see to it, and by asking the other if she
were not ashamed. But old Polly didn't let the matter pass so easily.
She was greatly shocked at having "such shameful carryin's on in a
decent man's house."

"'Clare for't," said she, "I'll give marster a piece of Polly Pepper's
mind the fust time I get a lick at him."

In the course of a few days Mr. Hamilton had occasion to go for
something into Aunt Polly's dominions. The old lady was ready for him.
"Mr. Hampleton," said she, "I've been waitin' to see you this long
spell."

"To see me, Polly?" said he; "what do you want?"

"What I wants is this," answered Polly, dropping into a chair. "I want
to know what this house is a comin' to, with such bedivilment in it as
there's been since madam came here with that little black-headed,
ugly-favored, ill-begotten, Satan-possessed, shoulder-unj'inted young
one of her'n. It's been nothin' but a rowdadow the whole time, and you
hain't grit enough to stop it. Madam boxes Willie, and undertakes to