his glasses off with a fierce gesture, and did his duty by
barking at her,--as Mrs. Maitland would have expressed it. He
told her in an angry voice that she must go to bed for the rest
of the day! at least, if she ever did it again, she must go to
bed for the rest of the day.

Another time he felt even surer of the feminine failing:
Elizabeth said, in his presence, that she wished she had some
rings like those of a certain Mrs. Richie, who had lately come to
live next door; at which Mr. Ferguson barked at Miss White,
barked so harshly that Elizabeth flew at him like a little
enraged cat. "Stop scolding Cherry-pie! You hurt her feelings;
you are a wicked man!" she screamed, and beating him with her
right hand, she fastened her small, sharp teeth into her left arm
just above the wrist--then screamed again with self-inflicted
pain. But when Miss White, dismayed at such a loss of self-
control, apologized for her, Mr. Ferguson shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't mind temper," he said; "I used to have a temper myself;
but I will _not_ have her vain! Better put some plaster on
her arm. Elizabeth, you must not call Miss White by that
ridiculous name."

The remark about Mrs. Richie's rings really disturbed him; it
made him deplore to himself the advent as a neighbor of a foolish
woman. "She'll put ideas into Elizabeth's head," he told himself.
In regard to the rings, he had not needed Elizabeth to instruct
him. He had noticed them himself, and they had convinced him that
this Mrs. Richie, who at first sight seemed a shy, sad woman with
no nonsense about her, was really no exception to her sex. "Vain