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and you and I will keep it up till all's blue.'
Thereupon Esther arose in sullen glory. She had sat and
listened for two mortal hours while her idol defiled himself
and sneered away his godhead. One by one, her illusions had
departed. And now he wished to order her to bed in her own
house! now he called her Puss! now, even as he uttered the
words, toppling on his chair, he broke the stem of his
tobacco-pipe in three! Never did the sheep turn upon her
shearer with a more commanding front. Her voice was calm,
her enunciation a little slow, but perfectly distinct, and
she stood before him as she spoke, in the simplest and most
maidenly attitude.
'No,' she said, 'Mr. Naseby will have the goodness to go home
at once, and you will go to bed.'
The broken fragments of pipe fell from the Admiral's fingers;
he seemed by his countenance to have lived too long in a
world unworthy of him; but it is an odd circumstance, he
attempted no reply, and sat thunderstruck, with open mouth.
Dick she motioned sharply towards the door, and he could only
obey her. In the porch, finding she was close behind him, he
ventured to pause and whisper, 'You have done right.'
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