It's a sad tale for me to tell, is it not ?' said the blooming mother with a laugh.
'Why, they'll be looking out for husbands next,' said Uncle Bat.
'Oh! they're doing that already, every day,' said Katie.
'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Uncle Bat; 'I suppose so, I suppose so;--ha, ha, ha!' Gertrude turned away to the window, disgusted and angry, and made up her mind to hate Uncle Bat for ever afterwards.

Linda made a little attempt to smile, and felt somewhat glad in her heart that her uncle was a man who could indulge in a joke.
He was then taken upstairs to his bedroom, and here he greatly frightened Katie, and much scandalized the parlour-maid by declaring, immediately on his entering the room, that it was 'd----- hot, d---ation hot; craving your pardon, ladies!' 'We thought, uncle, you'd like a fire,' began Mrs.Woodward, 'as----' 'A fire in June, when I can hardly carry my coat on my back!' 'It's the last day of May now,' said Katie timidly, from behind the bed-curtains.
This, however, did not satisfy the captain, and orders were forthwith given that the fire should be taken away, the curtains stripped off, the feather beds removed, and everything reduced to pretty much the same state in which it had usually been left for Harry Norman's accommodation.

So much for all the feminine care which had been thrown away upon the consideration of Uncle Bat's infirmities.
'God bless my soul!' said he, wiping his brow with a huge coloured handkerchief as big as a mainsail, 'one night in such a furnace as that would have brought on the gout.' He had dined in town, and by the time that his chamber had been stripped of its appendages, he was nearly ready for bed.

Before he did so, he was asked to take a glass of sherry.
'Ah! sherry,' said he, taking up the bottle and putting it down again.

'Sherry, ah! yes; very good wine, I am sure.