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Just then thoughts of a different kind
Seemed suddenly to cross her mind,
And she went on in tone more civil;
‘It may be, though, that you're the devil;

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What business, pray, have you with me?
We surely cannot disagree.
Have n't I left my proper sphere
To spread my scandals far and near?
Left my ‘old man,’ I swore to cherish,
To cold potatoes or to perish?
My poor neglected brats forsaken
Till you 've apprenticed them, and taken?
Have I not fired with zealous rage
To hear rebuke from some old sage,
Or read the apostolic page?
Sought out each fire-and-tow convention
Fierce for polemics and contention?
Have I not ever cast aloof
Instruction and ‘despised reproof,’
And as a consequence, you see,
Been full of general deviltry?
And now is this the way it ends?
Is this the way you ‘back your friends?’