"So, girl, I hear that you have been meddling with things that do not
concern you,--sowing dissension between the old man and me; presuming to
dictate to us how we are to manage our own property. He retailed to me,
last night, a parcel of impertinence with which you had been teasing him,
about this traveller Risberg, assuming, long before your time, the
province of his care-taker. Why, do you think," continued he,
contemptuously, "he'll ever return to marry you? Take my word for't, he's
no such fool. I _know_ that he never will."

The infirmity of my temper has been a subject of eternal regret to me;
yet it never displayed itself with much force, except under the lash of my
brother's sarcasms. My indignation on those occasions had a strange
mixture of fear in it, and both together suffocated my speech. I made no
answer to this boisterous arrogance.

"But come," continued he, "pray, let us hear your very wise objections
to a man's applying his own property to his own use. To rob himself and
spend the spoil upon another is thy sage maxim, it seems, for which thou
deservest to be dubbed a _she Solomon_. But let's see if thou art as
cunning in defending as in coining maxims. Come; there is a chair: lay it
on the floor, and suppose it a bar or rostrum, which thou wilt, and stand
behind it, and plead the cause of foolish prodigality against common
sense."

I endeavoured to muster up a little spirit, and replied, "I could not
plead before a more favourable judge. An appeal to my brother on behalf of
foolish prodigality could hardly fail of success. Poor common sense must
look for justice at some other tribunal."