Then your mother, in flaming indignation at this, enacted
Vesuvius in a blaze, and there she stands ready for another eruption."
"I wish you were in the bottom of Vesuvius, Lindsay; but you shall not
have your way, notwithstanding."
"So I am, my dear, every day in my life. I have a little volcano of my
own here, under the very roof with me; and I tell that volcano that I
will have my own way in this matter, and that this marriage must take
place if Alice is willing; and I'm sure she is, the dear girl."
"Sir," said Woodward, addressing his step-father calmly, "I feel a good
deal surprised that a thinking man, of a naturalise late temper as you
are,--"
"Yes, Harry, I am so."
"Of such a sedate temper as you are, should not recollect the
possibility of my mother, who sometimes takes up impressions hastily, if
not erroneously--as the calmest of us too frequently do--of my mother,
I say, considerably mistaking and unconsciously misrepresenting the
circumstances I mentioned to her."
"But why did you mention them exclusively to her?" asked Charles; "I
cannot see your object in concealing them from the rest of the family,
especially from those who were most interested in the knowledge of
them.
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