CHAPTER X.
I PLAY CATHERINE TO MR. DARE'S PETRUCHIO.
It was our custom at Cleeby to sit down to the
evening meal at seven o'clock. We held supper a
function in our country day. Then it was that the
Earl, my heroical papa, gout or no gout, would
grace the table with his embroidered presence, and
ogle his daughter, or his sister-in-law the ancient
Caroline. This rather than his eyes, once so bright
and fatal, should vainly spend their waning lustres
on a stolid dish or an unresponsive spoon. The
poor vamped-up old gentleman, with that monumental
vanity of man that we women feed for our
private ends, would not admit, even to himself, that
though this dog had once enjoyed his day, that day
now was over. He might be condemned to death;
the wrinkles might strike through his powder; he
might be toothless, doddering, with a weak action
of the heart, and his age in a nice proportion to his
crimes; he might be propt up in a back-strap and a
pair of stays, the completest and most ghastly wreck
in fact you ever set your eyes upon—that is before
his man had wound him up and set him going for
the day—but he would never admit that he was old,
