though he
was warm-hearted, and had a love for Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and
affection for hire well deserved, yet he was rough in temper, and
not constantly smooth in speech. It is true that his heart smote him
afterwards, whenever he had said anything to annoy Mrs. Lobkins, and he
was always the first to seek a reconciliation; but warm words produce
cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always efficacious in
amending the future. Paul then, puffed up with the vanity of his genteel
education, and the friendship of Long Ned (who went to Ranelagh, and
wore silver clocked stockings), stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins's
chair, and said with great solemnity,--

"Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that I must have money to support
myself like a gentleman; and as you won't give it me, I am determined,
with many thanks for your past favours, to throw myself on the world,
and seek my fortune."

If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, Dame Margaret Lobkins, it has
been seen, had no advantage on that score. (We dare say the reader has
observed that nothing so enrages persons on whom one depends as any
expressed determination of seeking independence.) Gazing therefore for
one moment at the open but resolute countenance of Paul, while all the
blood of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her enlarging
cheeks, Dame Lobkins said,--

"Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds! seek your fortune yourself, will you?
This comes of my bringing you up, and letting you eat the bread of
idleness and charity, you toad of a thousand! Take that and be d--d
to you!" and, suiting the action to the word, the tube which she had
withdrawn from her mouth in order to utter her gentle rebuke whizzed
through the air, grazed Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by
coming in violent contact with the right eye of Duinmie Dunnaker, who at
that exact moment entered the room.

Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the missive; in the next he
stood perfectly upright. His cheeks glowed, his chest swelled; and the
entrance of Dummie Dunuaker, who was thus made the spectator of the
affront he had received, stirred his blood into a deeper anger and a
more bitter self-humiliation. All his former resolutions of departure,
all the hard words, the coarse allusions, the practical insults he had
at any time received, rushed upon him at once. He merely cast one look
at the old woman, whose rage was now half subsided, and turned slowly
and in si