For the first time for a long period of years, the lady found her powers
of tongue fail in the proposed effect upon the understanding of her
loving and legal lord; and knowing but of one other way to assail it,
her hand at length grappling with the stool, from which she tumbled the
breechless babe without scruple, seized upon an argument to which her
adversary could oppose neither text nor technical; when, fortunately for
him, the loud rapping of their early visiters at the outer door of the
dwelling interposed between her wrath and its object, and spared the
life of the devout sheriff for other occurrences. Bundling the naked
child out of sight, the mother rushed into an inner apartment, shaking
the stool in the pale countenance of her lord as she retreated, in a
manner and with a look which said, as plainly as words could say, that
this temporary delay would only sharpen her appetite for vengeance, and
exaggerate its terrors when the hour did arrive. It was with a
hesitating step and wobegone countenance, therefore, that the officer
proceeded to his parlor, where a no less troublesome, but less awkward
trial awaited him.
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