"Calamity! yes; perhaps you may have a headache to-morrow, for which the world must be prepared by a storm of thunder and lightning, and a shower of blood.
The head that reels over night with an excess of wine and punch will ache in the morning without a prodigy to foretell it." "Say what you will," he replied, "I believe the devil had a hand in it; and I tell you," he added, laughing, "that if you be advised by me, you'll begin to prepare yourself--'a stitch in time saves nine,' you know--so look sharp, I say." "This, Harry," she said, addressing her son, "is the way your mother has been treated all along; yes, by a brutal and coarse-minded husband, who pays no attention to anything but his own gross and selfish enjoyments; but, thank God, I have now some person to protect me." "O, ho!" said her husband, "you are for a battle now.

Harry, you don't know her.

If she lets loose that scurrilous tongue of hers I have no chance; upon my soul, I'd encounter another half dozen of thunder-storms, and as many showers of blood, sooner than come under it for ten minutes; a West India hurricane is a zephyr to it." "Ah, God help the unhappy woman that's blistered for life with an ignorant sot!--such a woman is to be pitied .-- and such a woman am I;--I, you good-for-nothing drunken booby, who made you what you are." "O, fie! mamma," said Maria, "this is too bad to papa, who, you know, seldom replies to you at all." "Miss Lindsay, I shall suffer none of your impertinence," said her mother; "leave the room, madam, this moment--how dare you?
but I am not surprised at it;--leave the room, I say." The poor, amiable girl, who was all fearfulness and affection, quietly left the room as she was desired, and her father, who saw that his worthy wife was brimful of a coming squall, put on his hat, and after having given one of his usual sardonic looks, left the apartment also.
"Mother," said her son Charles, "I must protest against the unjustifiable violence of temper with which you treat my father.

You know he was only jesting in what he said to you this moment." "Let him carry his jests else were, Mr.Charles," she replied, "he shan't indulge in them at my expense; nor will I have you abet him in them as you always do--yes, sir, and laugh at them in my face.

All this, however, is very natural; as the old cock crows the young one learns.
As for Maria, if she makes as dutiful a wife as she does a daughter, her husband may thank God for getting his full share of evil in this life." "I protest to heaven, Harry," said Charles, addressing his brother, "if ever there was a meek, sweet-tempered girl living, Maria is.