I was
silent, and bore the scornful looks of my persecutors with patience and
dignity.
Plickaman repeated the sentence.
"But hear the rest," said he, and read on:--
"From what you say of her tinge of African blood and other charming
traits, I have constructed this portrait of the future Mrs. Bratley
Chylde, as the Hottentot Venus. Behold it!"
And Mellasys held up a highly colored caricature, covering one whole
side of my friend's sheet.
Saccharissa rose from the sofa where she had been sitting during the
whole of my trial.
She stood before me,--really I cannot deny it,--a little, ugly, vulgar
figure, overloaded with finery, and her laces and ribbons trembled with
rage.
She seemed not to be able to speak, and, by way of relieving herself of
her overcharge of wrath, smote me several times on either ear with that
pudgy hand I had so often pressed in mine or tenderly kissed.
At this exhibition of a resentment I can hardly deem feminine, the
Fire-Eaters roared with laughter and cheered her to continue. A circle
of negroes also, at the window, expressed their amusement at the scene
in the guttural manner of their race.
I could not refrain from tears at these unhappy exhibitions on the part
of my betrothed. They augured ill for the harmony of our married life.
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