“My dear Tom,” breathed the placid voice of Miss Chris, “I’m quite sure you’re mistaken.  Why, Judge Bassett—­”

“Mistaken!” persisted the general angrily.  “Am I the man to make a statement without authority?  I tell you he’s a scamp, ma’am—­a regular scamp!  If you please to doubt my word—­”

“That’s rather rough on a chap, isn’t it?” put in Bernard indifferently.  “He isn’t a gentleman, but I shouldn’t call him a scamp.”

“Why should you call him anything, sir?” demanded the general.  “It’s no business of yours, is it?  If I choose to call him a—­”

“Now, father,” said Eugenia, and at her decisive tones the general broke off and turned upon her round, inquiring eyes.  “Now, father, you don’t mean one word that you’re saying, and you know it.”  And she proceeded to butter his cakes.

The general was suppressed, and after breakfast he got into the carriage beside his daughter and drove slowly into town.  When he returned to dinner he met Miss Chris with triumphant eyes.

“By the way, Chris, you were mistaken this morning about that Burr boy.  He’s quite a decent person.  I don’t see how you got it into your head there was something wrong about him.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” responded Miss Chris good-humouredly.  She had never uttered a harsh word about anybody in her life, but she was a long-suffering woman, and she philosophically accepted the accusation.

Twenty-four hours later the general had a passage at arms with Bernard.

“You can watch the threshing this morning, my boy,” he remarked as he sat down to breakfast.  “You won’t go in to town, I suppose?”

Bernard shook his head.

“I thought of riding in for the mail,” he answered; “there’s a letter I’m looking for.”

The general flushed and put out a preliminary feeler.  “How are you going?” he inquired; “not on one of my horses, I hope?”

Eugenia shook her head at Bernard, but he went on recklessly: 

“Why, yes, I thought I’d take the gray mare.”

The general shook his head until his flabby face grew purple.

“The gray mare!” he thundered.  “You mean to take out my gray mare, do you?  Well, I’d like to see you, sir.  Not a step does the gray mare stir—­not a step, sir.”

“Oh, all right,” agreed Bernard so quietly that the general’s rage increased.  “Keep her in the stables, for all I care.”  And, having finished his breakfast, he bowed to Miss Chris and left the table.

But an hour later, as he passed through the hall, he found the general waiting.  “Aren’t you ready?” he asked irascibly.  “Are you going to waste the whole morning?  Why aren’t you in town?”

Bernard’s temper was well enough as long as there was no reason it should be better; but he couldn’t stand his father, and he knew it.

“I’m not going,” he returned sullenly.

“Not going!” cried the general hotly, “not going after all the fuss you’ve raised?  What do you mean by changing your mind every minute?”