You rode the high horse pretty hard to-day.

The spotless honor of the Cliffords, eh ?" Then it was fixed bayonets and no quarter.
"Have the Cliffords ever dabbled in trade or trickery?
Coal merchants, coal heavers, and coal whippers may defile our fields with coal dust and smoke, but they can not defile our honor." "The men are brave as lions, and the women as chaste as snow ?" sneered Bartley.
"I don't know about lions and snow.

I have often seen a lion turn tail, and the snow is black slush wherever you are.

But the Cliffords, being gentlemen, are brave, and being ladies, are chaste." "Oh, indeed!" hissed Bartley.

"Then how comes it that your niece there--whose name is _Miss_ Clifford, I believe--spent what this good man calls a honey-moon, with a young gentleman, at this good man's inn ?" Here the good man in question made a faint endeavor to interpose, but the gentlefolks by their impetuosity completely suppressed him.
"It's a falsehood!" cried Julia, haughtily.
"You scurrilous cad!" roared the Colonel, and shook his staff at him, and seemed on the point of charging him.
But Bartley was not to be put down this time.