Oscar had never seen his father exhibit so much emotion before.  Usually, on such occasions, he was stern, if not passionate; more ready to threaten and punish than to appeal to the heart and conscience.  Now, all this was changed, and sorrow seemed to have taken the place of anger.  Oscar was somewhat affected by this unusual manifestation of parental anxiety.  He was pretty well hardened against scoldings and threatenings, but he did not know how to meet this new form of rebuke.  He tried to conceal his feelings, however, and preserved a sullen silence throughout the interview.

This affair made no abiding impression upon Oscar.  In a day or two it was forgotten, and the slight compunctions he felt had entirely disappeared.  But the schoolmaster’s complaint was soon followed by another that was quite as unpleasant.  As Mrs. Preston was sitting at her sewing, one day, the door suddenly opened, and in came Bridget, the servant girl, with a face as red as rage and a hot fire could make it.

“I’ll be goin’ off this night, ma’am—­I’ll pack me chist, and not stop here any longer at all,” said Bridget, in a tone that betokened her anger.

“Going off—­what do you mean?  You don’t say you ’re going to leave us so suddenly, Biddy?” inquired Mrs. Preston, with surprise.

“Yes, that I be,” replied Bridget, very decidedly; “I ’ll not be after staying in the same house with that big, ugly b’y, another day.”

“Who, Oscar?  What has he done now?” inquired Mrs. Preston.

“He’s did nothing but bother the life out o’ me ivery day since he coom back, that’s jist all he ’s did,” replied Biddy.  “Jist now, ma’am, he slopped over a hull basin o’ dirty whater right on to the clane floor, and thin laffed at me, and sassed me, and called me, all sorts o’ bad names—­the little sass-box!  It’s not the like o’ Bridget Mullikin that ’ll put up with his dirty impidence another day.  I ’d like to live with ye, ma’am, and Mister Pristen, good, nice man that he is but I can’t stop to be trated like a dog by that sassy b’y.”

“I ’ll go and see what he has been about,” said Mrs. Preston, laying down her work.

When they reached the kitchen, Oscar was not to be found.  There was the puddle of dirty water upon the floor, however, and so far Bridget’s story was corroborated.  As she proceeded to wipe it up, she continued to speak in not very complimentary terms of the “ugly b’y,” as she delighted to call Oscar.  It was in vain that Mrs. Preston attempted to soothe her ruffled spirits.  She refused to be comforted, and insisted upon taking her departure from the house that night.

Oscar did not make his appearance again until late in the afternoon.  When his mother called him to account for his treatment of Bridget, he denied the greater part of her story.  He said that the basin of water was standing upon the floor, and that he accidentally hit it with his foot, and upset it.  He denied that he called her bad names or was impudent, but he admitted that he laughed, to see her so angry.  He also complained that she was as “cross as Bedlam” to him, and “jawed” him whenever he entered the kitchen.