He passed in and out of the cabin continually: they disputed, they quarrelled, they made it up again twenty times in the course of the night.

She professed to be writing a letter home--she said to her father; she read passages of it aloud, heeding me no more than a stock--perhaps she believed me asleep.
Several of these passages appeared to comprise family secrets, and bore special reference to one "Charlotte," a younger sister who, from the bearing of the epistle, seemed to be on the brink of perpetrating a romantic and imprudent match; loud was the protest of this elder lady against the distasteful union.

The dutiful son laughed his mother's correspondence to scorn.

She defended it, and raved at him.

They were a strange pair.