a monstrous clatter.
Little doubt may be entertained that the noise was designed to disturb
Mr. Carewe, who sat upon the veranda consulting a brown Principe, and
less that the intended insult was accomplished. For an expression of
a vindictive nature was precipitated in that quarter so simultaneously
that the bang of the piano-lid and the curse were even as the report of
a musket and the immediate cry of the wounded.

Mrs. Tanberry at once debouched upon the piazza, showing a vast, clouded
countenance. "And I hope to heaven you already had a headache!" she
exclaimed.

"The courtesy of your wish, madam," Carewe replied, with an angry flash
of his eye, "is only equaled by the kindness of heaven in answering it.
I have, in fact, a headache. I always have, nowadays."

"That's good news," returned the lady heartily.

"I thank you," retorted her host.

"Perhaps if you treated your daughter even a decent Indian's kind of
politeness, you'd enjoy better health."

"Ah! And in what failure to perform my duty toward her have I incurred
your displeasure?"

"Where is she now?" exclaimed the other excitably. "Where is she now?"

"I cannot say."

"Yes, you can, Robert Carewe!" Mrs. Tanberry retorted, with a wrathful
gesture. "You know well enough she's in her own room, and so do I--for
I tried to get in to comfort her when I heard her crying. She's in there
with the door bolted, where you drove her!"

"I drove her!" he sneered.

"Yes, you did, and I heard you. Do you think I couldn't hear you raging
and storming at her like a crazy man? When you get in a temper do you
dream there's a soul in the neighborhood who doesn't know it? You're a
fool if you do, because they could have heard you swearing down on Main
Street, if they'd listened. What are you trying to do to her?--break
her spirit?--or what? Because you'll do it, or kill her. I never heard
anybody cry so heart-brokenly." Here the good woman's own eyes filled.
"What's the use of pretending?" she went on sorrowfully. "You haven't
spoken to her kindly since you came home. Do you suppose I'm blind to
that? You weren't a bad husband to the poor child's mother; why can't
you be a good father to her?"

"Perhaps you might begin by asking her to be a good daughter to me."

"What has she done?"

"The night before I went away she ran to a fire and behaved there like a
common street hoyden. The ladies of the Carewe family have not formerly
acquired a notoriety of that kind.