None of your nonsense, Miss! I won't permit it to be done.'
'I shall do,' said Charity, rocking her chair backwards and forwards,
and raising her voice to a high pitch, 'I shall do, Pa, what I please
and what I have done. I am not going to be crushed in everything, depend
upon it. I've been more shamefully used than anybody ever was in
this world,' here she began to cry and sob, 'and may expect the worse
treatment from you, I know. But I don't care for that. No, I don't!'
Mr Pecksniff was made so desperate by the loud tone in which she spoke,
that, after looking about him in frantic uncertainty for some means of
softening it, he rose and shook her until the ornamental bow of hair
upon her head nodded like a plume. She was so very much astonished by
this assault, that it really had the desired effect.
'I'll do it again!' cried Mr Pecksniff, as he resumed his seat and
fetched his breath, 'if you dare to talk in that loud manner. How do
you mean about being shamefully used? If Mr Jonas chose your sister in
preference to you, who could help it, I should wish to know? What have I
to do with it?'
'Wasn't I made a convenience of? Weren't my feelings trifled with?
Didn't he address himself to me first?' sobbed Cherry, clasping her
hands; 'and oh, good gracious, that I should live to be shook!'
'You'll live to be shaken again,' returned her parent, 'if you drive
me to that means of maintaining the decorum of this humble roof.
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