'I'm blest but I thought 'twas tall Burke, the gunner.'
'You might look behind before you spring backward, young gentlewoman,' said Aunt Becky, with a very bright colour.
'And you might look before you before you spring forward, old gentlewoman,' replied Miss Mag, just as angry.
'Young ladies used to have a respect to decorum,' Aunt Becky went on.
'So they prayed me to tell you, Madam,' replied the young lady, with a very meek courtesy, and a very crimson face.
'Yes, Miss Mac--Mag--Madam--it used to be so,' rejoined Aunt Rebecca, ''twas part of my education, at least, to conduct myself in a polite company like a civilised person.'
'"I wish I could see it," says blind Hugh,' Magnolia retorted; 'but 'twas a good while ago, Madam, and you've had time to forget.'
'I shall acquaint your mother, Mrs.--Mug--Mac--Macnamara, with your pretty behaviour to-morrow,' said Miss Rebecca.
'To-morrow's a new day, and mother may be well enough then to hear your genteel lamentation; but I suppose you mean to-morrow come never,' answered Magnolia, with another of her provoking meek courtesies.
'Oh, this is Lieutenant Puddock,' said Aunt Becky, drawing off in high disdain, 'the bully of the town. Your present company, Sir, will find very pretty work, I warrant, for your sword and pistols; Sir Launcelot and his belle!'
'Do you like a belle or beldame best, Sir Launcelot?' enquired Miss Mag, with a mild little duck to Puddock.
'You'll have your hands pretty full, Sir, ha, ha, ha!' and with scarlet cheeks, and a choking laugh, away sailed Aunt Rebecca.
'Choke, chicken, there's more a-hatching,' said Miss Mag, in a sort of aside, and cutting a flic-flac with a merry devilish laugh, and a wink to Puddock. That officer, being a gentleman, was a good deal disconcerted, and scandalised--too literal to see, and too honest to enjoy, the absurd side of the combat.
'Twas an affair of a few seconds, like two frigates crossing in a gale, with only opportunity for a broadside or two; and when the Rebecca Chattesworth sheered off, it can't be denied, her tackling was a good deal more cut up, and her hull considerably more pierced, than those of the saucy Magnolia, who sent that whistling shot and provoking cheer in her majestic wake.