deep remorse for the dreadful deed.  He heard about it and got angry!  He does look awful gloomy!  He says I am crude, very crude, and put people on edge; and that I am so good-natured, so good-humored all the time that it reduces less fortunate people into a state of most desperate defiance—­defiance against my everlasting flow of animal spirits, unchecked by any thing.  He told all that to Sophia Gilder, and Sophia is my bosom-friend; so she told me!  Aunt Patsey has a great admiration for her mother, Mrs. John Robert Gilder, but says that Sophia, poor girl, is a milk-sop—­weak, weak! and taps her shining forehead knowingly.  Auntie has a most alarming way of disposing of people!  I know all about her methods—­gracious goodness!  I ought by this time.

About two or three months after I was finished off at the Seminary, Miss Lena Searlwood gave a little affair in my honor.  She called it a tea—­it really was more like a dinner!  They do entertain so well!  I was taken home afterward by that Calburt Young—­a great privilege I suppose!  He was in a bad humor anyhow; had not seen enough of Miss Lena!  He let me do all of the talking, never once suggesting a new topic, and listened with an air, not of attention, but enforced toleration.  It made me furious!  Two or three times he said “Yes?” which was really worse than nothing!  Finally, when near home, he turned to me and in a tired, indifferent tone, said:  “Beg pardon, Miss Wing; you are just out, I believe!  What did you study while at school?” It was a fling—­I knew it—­so I answered, “I studied how to be rude to arrogant, patronizing people who are forever asking impudent questions with a desire to give pain, sir!” He placed my night-key in the door deliberately, calmly; pushed open the door, lifted his hat, turned on his heel, without even closing one half of the storm-doors, like other men always do, and said:  “Miss Wing, you have been well taught!  You were, indeed, a very apt scholar!  I congratulate you!  I have the honor to bid you good-night!” I could have picked a dozen pale-pink roses to pieces just then, but not leaf by leaf; I could have torn up a whole rose-tree by the roots!  They say Mr. Young is so smart, wonderful deep, and all that; but he is just a mean, rude man, and I won’t ever have any thing more to do with him; and when I say I won’t, I won’t!

How some people do ruffle me into a fever-heat of dislike and ardent opposition.  Of course I know that it is all wrong, yet after all there is a certain kind of satisfaction.  Now, for instance, that Mrs. Babbington Brooks, with her smooth, oily tongue, abominable phrases, “Yes, my sweet loves,” and her “O! my dear doves,” sets me fairly wild.  She is such a vulgar, low-born person!  I always feel tempted to fly right at her and tear off her load of tawdry, costly finery, exhaling a strong, close odor of greenbacks.  How people have taken them up! all on account of their money.