a combination of the torrent,
the herd, and all the other unmanageable things in nature and beyond,
"Don't!" even from a voice that we love, with right and reason behind
it, is sometimes painfully powerless. There is no intention, on the part
of the narrator, of defending the previous or subsequent action of Mr.
Frank Wallace on this occasion; but actual events must be recorded.

"Well sir, and what am I to answer?" asked the young man, without a
quiver in his voice, but with much more earnest in it than it had before
manifested.

"You made an offensive comment on my veracity, by whistling, a moment
ago."

"And what then, sir?"

"That offensive comment shows that you doubt my veracity!"

"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" again spoke Aunt Martha; and poor Emily, now
half frightened out of her wits, made one more attempt at imploring her
lover to be quiet. This done, and both now aware that the tide, on one
side at least, had overflowed the bounds of all prudence, they desisted,
stepped back from between the rivals, and allowed the quarrel to take
its own course.

"And suppose I _do_ doubt your veracity!" answered Wallace to the last
remark of the Colonel. "You call yourself thirty-two! Bah! you are
fifty, if you are ten!" The obvious rage on the countenance of the
Colonel did not stop the torrent, now, nor even check it! "Such fine
crows'-feet under the eyes, as those of yours, never come much before
fifty, except in case of a nice round of brandy-smashes, late hours and
general dissipation, or--"

"Well, sir, what is the _or_?" broke out the Colonel, still more
furious.

"A severe course of early piety!" concluded the young man, throwing a
terrible sting into the tail of his sentence, not less by the manner
than the voice.

"You should answer for this, Mr. Wallace, as you call yourself," foamed
the Colonel--"but--"

"But _what_, Lieut. Colonel Bancker--as you _try_ to call yourself?"
thundered the young man, in reply.

"Oh, gentlemen! gentlemen! do stop, for the sake of the house!"
imploringly put in Aunt Martha at this period; while Emily, seriously
frightened, indulged in a few tears that were no doubt set down to the
account of her brute of a lover, by the over-watching intelligences. But
the quarrel ceased not, even yet, at the bidding of either; and,
marvellous to relate, though the front windows were open and they were
speaking in a tone altogether too loud for the amenities of society, a
crowd had _not_ ga