Plantagenet has so aggravated me, I really do not feel myself.'

Lady Annabel sounded her silver hand-bell, and the butler brought some
cakes and the Mountain. Mrs. Cadurcis revived by virtue of her single
glass, and the providential co-operation of a subsequent one or two.
Even the cakes and the Mountain, however, would not tempt her son to
open his mouth; and this, in spite of her returning composure, drove
her to desperation. A conviction that the Mountain and the cakes were
delicious, an amiable desire that the palate of her spoiled child
should be gratified, some reasonable maternal anxiety that after so
long and fatiguing a drive he in fact needed some refreshment, and
the agonising consciousness that all her own physical pleasure at the
moment was destroyed by the mental sufferings she endured at having
quarrelled with her son, and that he was depriving himself of what was
so agreeable only to pique her, quite overwhelmed the ill-regulated
mind of this fond mother. Between each sip and each mouthful, she
appealed to him to follow her example, now with cajolery, now with
menace, till at length, worked up by the united stimulus of the
Mountain and her own ungovernable rage, she dashed down the glass and
unfinished slice of cake, and, before the astonished Lady Annabel,
rushed forward to give him what she had long threatened, and what she
in general ultimately had recourse to, a good shake.

Her agile son, experienced in these storms, escaped in time, and
pushed his chair before his infuriated mother; Mrs. Cadurcis, however,
rallied, and chased him round the room; once more she flattered
herself she had captured him, once more he evaded her; in her despair
she took up Venetia's 'Seven Champions,' and threw the volume at his
head; he laughed a fiendish laugh, as, ducking his head, the book flew
on, and dashed through a pane of glass; Mrs. Cadurcis made a desperate