the house with you an hour longer. The wagon for Basingstoke comes
past at three o'clock, and I shall go and stay with my father and
mother there, and take Alice with me."

"I forbid you to do anything of the sort," the mayor said pompously.

"You forbid!" Dame Anthony cried. "What do I care for your forbidding?
If you say a word I will go down the town and join those who pelted
you with mud last night. A nice spectacle it would be for the worthy
Mayor of Southampton to be pelted in the street by a lot of women
led by his own wife. You know me, Richard. You know when I say I
will do a thing I will do it."

"I will lock you up in your own room, woman."

"You won't," Dame Anthony said scornfully. "I would scream out of
the window till I brought the whole town round. No, Mr. Mayor. You
have had your own way, and I am going to have mine. Go and tell the
town if you like that your wife has left you because you kidnapped
her cousin, the boy she loved. You tell your story and I will tell
mine. Why, the women in the town would hoot you, and you wouldn't
dare show your face in the streets. You insist, indeed! Why, you
miserable little man, my fingers are tingling now. Say another word
to me and I will box your ears till you won't know whether you are
standing on your head or your heels."

The mayor was a small man, while Dame Anthony, although not above
the usual height, was plump and strong; and her crestfallen spouse
felt that she was capable of carrying her threat into execution. He
therefore thought it prudent to make no reply, and his angry wife