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same. A heavily ornamented chandelier, holding sixteen imitation candles in white porcelain,
hung low over the table and was brightly lighted, another offense to Aileen.
"Mama, how often have I told you not to say 'youse'?" pleaded Norah, very much disheartened
by her mother's grammatical errors. "You know you said you wouldn't."
"And who's to tell your mother what she should say?" called Butler, more incensed than ever at
this sudden and unwarranted rebellion and assault. "Your mother talked before ever you was
born, I'd have you know. If it weren't for her workin' and slavin' you wouldn't have any fine
manners to be paradin' before her. I'd have you know that. She's a better woman nor any you'll
be runnin' with this day, you little baggage, you!"
"Mama, do you hear what he's calling me?" complained Norah, hugging close to her mother's
arm and pretending fear and dissatisfaction.
"Eddie! Eddie!" cautioned Mrs. Butler, pleading with her husband. "You know he don't mean
that, Norah, dear. Don't you know he don't?"
She was stroking her baby's head. The reference to her grammar had not touched her at all.
Butler was sorry that he had called his youngest a baggage; but these children--God bless his
soul--were a great annoyance. Why, in the name of all the saints, wasn't this house good
enough for them?
"Why don't you people quit fussing at the table?" observed Callum, a likely youth, with black hair
laid smoothly over his forehead in a long, distinguished layer reaching from his left to close to
his right ear, and his upper lip carrying a short, crisp mustache. His nose was short and
retrousse, and his ears were rather prominent; but he was bright and attractive. He and Owen
both realized that the house was old and poorly arranged; but their father and mother liked it,
and business sense and family peace dictated silence on this score.
"Well, I think it's mean to have to live in this old place when people not one-fourth as good as
we are are living in better ones. The Cowperwoods--why, even the Cowperwoods--"
"Yes, the Cowperwoods! What about the Cowperwoods?" demanded Butler, turning squarely to
Aileen--she was sitting beside him---his big, red face glowing.
"Why, even they have a better house than we have, and he's merely an agent of yours."
"The Cowperwoods! The Cowperwoods! I'll not have any talk about the Cowperwoods. I'm not
takin' my rules from the Cowperwoods. Suppose they have a fine house, what of it? My house is
my house. I want to live here. I've lived here too long to be pickin' up and movin' away. If you
don't like it you know what else you can do. Move if you want to. I'll not move."
It was Butler's habit when he became involved in these family quarrels, which were as shallow
as puddles, to wave his hands rather antagonistically under his wife's or his children's noses.
"Oh, well, I will get out one of these days," Aileen replied. "Thank heaven I won't have to live
here forever."
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