On entering the house he found his; mother and step-father at high feud.  The I brows of the latter were knit, as was always the case when he found himself bent upon mischief.  He was calm, however, which was another bad sign, for in him the old adage was completely reversed, “After a storm comes a calm,” whilst in his case it uniformly preceded it.

Woodward looked about him with amazement; his step-father was standing with his back to the parlor fire, holding the skirts of his coat divided behind, whilst his wife stood opposite to him, her naturally red face still naming more deeply with a tornado of indignation.

“And you dare to tell me that you’ll consent to Charles’s marriage with her?”

“Yes, my dear, I dare to tell you so.  You have no objection that she should marry your son Harry there.  You forgot or dissembled your scorn and resentment against her, when you thought you could make a catch of her property:  a very candid and disinterested proceeding on your part, Well, what’s the consequence?  That’s all knocked up; the girl won’t have him, because she is attached to his brother, and because his brother is attached to her.  Now that is just as it ought to be, and, please God, we’ll have them married.  And I now I take the liberty of asking you both to the wedding.”

“Lindsay, you’re an offensive old dog, sir.”

“I might retort the compliment by changing the sex, my dear,” he replied, laughing! and nodding at her, with a face, from the nose down, rather benevolent than otherwise, but still the knit was between the brows.

“Lindsay, you’re an unmanly villain, and a coward to boot, or you wouldn’t use such language to a woman.”

“Not to a woman; but I’m sometimes forced to do so to a termagant.”

“What’s the cause of all this?” inquired Woodward; “upon my honor, the language I hear is very surprising, as coming from a justice of quorum and his lady.  Fie! fie!  I am ashamed of you both.  In what did it originate?”

“Why, the fact is, Harry, she has told us that Alice Goodwin, in the most decided manner, has rejected your addresses, and confided to you an avowal of her attachment to Charles here.  Now, when I heard this, I felt highly delighted at it, and said we should have them married, and so we shall.  Then your mother, in flaming indignation at this, enacted Vesuvius in a blaze, and there she stands ready for another eruption.”

“I wish you were in the bottom of Vesuvius, Lindsay; but you shall not have your way, notwithstanding.”

“So I am, my dear, every day in my life.  I have a little volcano of my own here, under the very roof with me; and I tell that volcano that I will have my own way in this matter, and that this marriage must take place if Alice is willing; and I’m sure she is, the dear girl.”

“Sir,” said Woodward, addressing his step-father calmly, “I feel a good deal surprised that a thinking man, of a naturalise late temper as you are,—­”