To-night Estelle seemed in unusually fine spirits, and talked on rapidly, till St. Elmo suddenly appeared to become aware of the import of her words, and in a few trenchant sentences he refuted the criticism on Phedre, advising his cousin to confine her comments to dramas with which she was better acquainted.

His tone and manner surprised Mr. Allston, who remarked: 

“Were I Czar, I would issue a ukase, chaining you to the steepest rock on the crest of the Ural, till you learned the courtesy due to lady disputants.  Upon my word, St. Elmo, you assault Miss Estelle with as much elan as if you were carrying a redoubt.  One would suppose that you had been in good society long enough to discover that the fortiter in re style is not allowable in discussions with ladies.”

“When women put on boxing-gloves and show their faces in the ring, they challenge rough handling, and are rarely disappointed.  I am sick of sciolism, especially that phase where it crops out in shallow criticism, and every day something recalls the reprimand of Apelles to the shoemaker.  If a worthy and able literary tribunal and critical code could be established, it would be well to revive an ancient Locrian custom, which required that the originators of new laws or propositions should be brought before the assembled wisdom, with halters around their necks, ready for speedy execution if the innovation proved, on examination, to be utterly unsound or puerile.  Ah! what a wholesale hanging of socialists would gladden my eyes!”

Mr. Murray bowed to his cousin as he spoke, and rising, took his favorite position on the rug.

“Really, Aunt Ellen, I would advise you to have him re-christened, under the name of Timon,” said Mr. Allston.

“No, no.  I decidedly object to any such gratification of his would-be classic freaks; and, as he is evidently aping Timon, though, unfortunately, nature denied him the Attic salt requisite to flavor the character, I would suggest, as a more suitable sobriquet, that bestowed on Louis X., ’Le Hutin’—­freely translated, The Quarrelsome!’ What say you, St. Elmo?”

Estelle walked up to her cousin and stood at his side.

“That is very bad policy to borrow one’s boxing-gloves; and I happened to overhear Edna Earl when she made that same suggestion to Gordon Leigh, with reference to my amiable temperament.  However, there is a maxim which will cover your retreat, and which you can conscientiously utter with much emphasis, if your memory is only good in repeating all the things you may have heard:  Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!  Shall I translate?”

She laughed lightly and answered: 

“So much for eavesdropping!  Of all the gentlemen of my acquaintance, I should fancy you were the very last who could afford to indulge in that amusement.”

“Miss Estelle, is this your first, second or third Punic war?  You and St. Elmo, or rather, my cousin, ‘The Quarrelsome,’ seem to wage it in genuine Carthaginian style.”