And she called her another time
fat-face, and womaned her most violently.
Well, said my master, I am glad, my dear, you have had such an escape.
My sister was always passionate, as Mrs. Peters knows: And my poor mother
had enough to do with us both. For we neither of us wanted spirit: and
when I was a boy, I never came home from school or college for a few
days, but though we longed to see one another before, yet ere the first
day was over, we had a quarrel; for she, being seven years older than I,
was always for domineering over me, and I could not bear it. And I used,
on her frequently quarrelling with the maids, and being always at a word
and a blow, to call her Captain Bab; for her name is Barbara. And when
my Lord Davers courted her, my poor mother has made up quarrels between
them three times in a day; and I used to tell her, she would certainly
beat her husband, marry whom she would, if he did not beat her first, and
break her spirit.
Yet has she, continued he, very good qualities. She was a dutiful
daughter, is a good wife; she is bountiful to her servants, firm in her
friendships, charitable to the poor, and, I believe, never any sister
better loved a brother, than she me: and yet she always loved to vex and
tease me; and as I would bear a resentment longer than she, she'd be one
moment the most provoking creature in the world, and the next would do
any thing to be forgiven; and I have made her, when she was the
aggressor, follow me all over the house and garden to be upon good terms
with me.
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