The old lady was extremely violent in temper, and after irritating it to the highest pitch, or, as he termed it, “putting on the steam,” he provoked her still more by his polite sarcasms and tantalizing replies.  The object of contest between them was generally the last word in the argument; and when victory appeared to incline neither to one side nor the other, my grandmother would exclaim angrily:  “Hold your tongue this moment, you impertinent boy!  Not another word.”

“Yes’m,” Fred would reply, with every appearance of submission.

Having triumphed up stairs, he generally went in search of Venus, whose anger was almost as vehement as that of her mistress.  Her time, when not attending to Mrs. Chesbury, was chiefly occupied by the duties of the toilet; and Jane asserted that she had anxiously inquired if there were no respectable colored gentlemen about the place?  Venus always bestowed a great deal of pains on the arrangement of her head covering, which was profusely decorated with combs of various shapes and sizes; but “thereby hangs a tale” which must be told.

Good beef is very scarce at the South, and Southerners therefore consider it a great treat when they come North.  My grandmother was very fond of it frizzled; and Venus being quite au fait in the manufacture of this dish, the old lady never allowed any one else to make it for her.  One afternoon, during my parents’ absence, the children being disposed of in various ways—­some had gone out for a walk, two were playing together in a closet where they had been locked up, and others were rambling about the grounds—­the house was pretty clear; so my grandmother resolved to enjoy a treat in her own apartment.  A small table was nicely laid out with all the requisites for a comfortable tea, and Venus then departed to the kitchen to dish up some frizzled beef.

But it so happened that the odor of the savory dish, in its passage up stairs, found its way to the nostrils of Master Fred, who had been quietly engaged in some wonderfully wise researches in the library; and as even philosophers are not exempt from the earth-born love of good things, out rushed our student with a polite request that Venus would “allow him to taste the trash, and see if it was fit to be sent to Mrs. Chesbury.”  A scuffle ensued, in which Fred succeeded in satisfying his curiosity; and with considerably ruffled plumage, and not in the sweetest state of mind, Venus proceeded up stairs.  Fred slyly followed; and peeping through the key-hole of a door that opened into my grandmother’s room, he determined to watch the progress of the feast.  Things looked very tempting, and he had half a mind to petition for a seat at the table; but he began to think that, even should he succeed in his request, a seat would be all he could gain; for the old lady attacked the eatables very much in the style of a school-boy just come home for the holidays.  The frizzled beef rapidly disappeared, till the bottom of the dish was scarcely covered; but suddenly ceasing her attacks upon it, my grandmother took the dish in her hand, and pointing to some black substance, interrogated the colored girl in accents of mingled doubt and horror.