embroidered with colours and silver or gold. There was also a small
scarlet-coated hunting costume and all the paraphernalia of the chase. It
was Sir Jeoffry's finest joke to bid her woman dress her as a boy, and
then he would have her brought to the table where he and his fellows were
dining together, and she would toss off her little bumper with the best
of them, and rip out childish oaths, and sing them, to their delight,
songs she had learned from the stable-boys. She cared more for dogs and
horses than for finery, and when she was not in the humour to be made a
puppet of, neither tirewoman nor devil could put her into her brocades;
but she liked the excitement of the dining-room, and, as time went on,
would be dressed in her flowered petticoats in a passion of eagerness to
go and show herself, and coquet in her lace and gewgaws with men old
enough to be her father, and loose enough to find her premature airs and
graces a fine joke indeed. She ruled them all with her temper and her
shrewish will. She would have her way in all things, or there should be
no sport with her, and she would sing no songs for them, but would flout
them bitterly, and sit in a great chair with her black brows drawn down,
and her whole small person breathing rancour and disdain.

Sir Jeoffry, who had bullied his wife, had now the pleasurable experience
of being henpecked by his daughter; for so, indeed, he was. Miss ruled
him with a rod of iron, and wielded her weapon with such skill that
before a year had elapsed he obeyed her as the servants below stairs had
done in her infancy. She had no fear of his great oaths, for she
possessed a strangely varied stock of her own upon which she could always
draw, and her voice being more shrill than his, if not of such bigness,
her ear-piercing shrieks and indomitable perseverance always proved too
much for him in the end. It must be admitted likewise that her violence
of temper and power of will were somewhat beyond his own, notwithstanding
her tender years and his reputation. In fact, he found himself obliged