Stone, provoked
at her perversity, answered:
"Well, you wilful girl, listen!" And commencing, he mercilessly told
her all that had passed at the table.
To have seen our Cap then! Face, neck and bosom were flushed with
the crimson tide of indignation!
"You are sure of what you tell me, Cousin John?"
"The man vouches for it!"
"He shall bite the dust!"
"What?"
"The slanderer shall bite the dust!"
Without more ado, down was thrown gun, game bag, powder flask and
shot-horn, and, bounding from point to point over all the
intervening space, Capitola rushed into Hurricane Hall, and without
an instant's delay ran straight into the parlor, where her epicurean
friend, the young Creole, lay slumbering upon the lounge.
With her face now livid with concentrated rage, and her eyes
glittering with that suppressed light peculiar to intense passion,
she stood before him and said:
"Edwin! Craven Le Noir has defamed your cousin! Get up and challenge
him!"
"What did you say, Cap?" said Mr. Percy, slightly yawning.
"Must I repeat it? Craven Le Noir has defamed my character--
challenge him!"
"That would be against the law, coz; they would indict me sure!"
"You--you--you lie there and answer me in that way! Oh that I were a
man!"
"Compose, yourself, sweet coz, and tell me what all this is about!
Yaw-ooo!--really I was asleep when you first spoke to me!"
"Asleep! Had you been dead and in your grave, the words that I spoke
should have roused you like the trump of the archangel!" exclaimed
Capitola, with the blood rushing back to her cheeks.
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