been treated all along; yes, by a brutal and coarse-minded husband, who
pays no attention to anything but his own gross and selfish enjoyments;
but, thank God, I have now some person to protect me."

"O, ho!" said her husband, "you are for a battle now. Harry, you don't
know her. If she lets loose that scurrilous tongue of hers I have
no chance; upon my soul, I'd encounter another half dozen of
thunder-storms, and as many showers of blood, sooner than come under it
for ten minutes; a West India hurricane is a zephyr to it."

"Ah, God help the unhappy woman that's blistered for life with an
ignorant sot!--such a woman is to be pitied.--and such a woman am I;--I,
you good-for-nothing drunken booby, who made you what you are."

"O, fie! mamma," said Maria, "this is too bad to papa, who, you know,
seldom replies to you at all."

"Miss Lindsay, I shall suffer none of your impertinence," said her
mother; "leave the room, madam, this moment--how dare you? but I am not
surprised at it;--leave the room, I say."

The poor, amiable girl, who was all fearfulness and affection, quietly
left the room as she was desired, and her father, who saw that his
worthy wife was brimful of a coming squall, put on his hat, and after
having given one of his usual sardonic looks, left the apartment also.

"Mother," said her son Charles, "I must protest against the
unjustifiable violence of temper with which you treat my father. You
know he was only jesting in what he said to you this moment."