just stept in, and is puttin on clean shoes in his bedroom.”
She said nothink in answer, but flumps past me, and opening the parlor-door, sees master looking very queer, and Miss Mary a-drooping down her head like a pale lily.
“Did you come into my famly,” says she, “to corrupt my daughters, and to destroy the hinnocence of that infamous gal? Did you come here, sir, as a seducer, or only as a lodger? Speak, sir, speak!”—and she folded her arms quite fierce, and looked like Mrs. Siddums in the Tragic Mews.
“I came here, Mrs. Shum,” said he, “because I loved your daughter, or I never would have condescended to live in such a beggarly hole. I have treated her in every respect like a genlmn, and she is as innocent now, ma'm, as she was when she was born. If she'll marry me, I am ready; if she'll leave you, she shall have a home where she shall be neither bullyd nor starved: no hangry frumps of sisters, no cross mother-in-law, only an affeckshnat husband, and all the pure pleasures of Hyming.”
Mary flung herself into his arms—“Dear, dear Frederic,” says she, “I'll never leave you.”
“Miss,” says Mrs. Shum, “you ain't a Slamcoe nor yet a Buckmaster, thank God. You may marry this person if your pa thinks proper, and he may insult me—brave me—trample on my feelinx in my own house—and there's no-o-o-obody by to defend me.”
I knew what she was going to be at: on came her histarrix agen, and she began screechin and roaring like mad. Down comes of course the eleven gals and old Shum. There was a pretty row. “Look here, sir,” says she, “at the conduck of your precious trull of a daughter—alone with this man, kissin and dandlin, and Lawd knows what besides.”
“What, he?” cries Miss Betsy—“he in love with Mary. Oh, the wretch, the monster, the deceiver!”—and she falls down too, screeching away as loud as her mamma; for the silly creature fancied still that Altamont had a fondness for her.
“SILENCE THESE WOMEN!” shouts out Altamont, thundering loud. “I love your daughter, Mr. Shum. I will take her without a penny, and can afford to keep her. If you don't give her to me, she'll come of her own will. Is that enough?—may I have her?”
“We'll talk of this matter, sir,” says Mr. Shum, looking
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