"Yes, to be sure. Poor Maggie, it cost her life, that little bit of business."
"And your second wife?"
"She was a Widow Gronlund from Arendal. Ah, that was a queer story. There I was, you see, with little William, Maggie's boy, sorrowful and downcast as a wet umbrella. Of course you'd understand I'd no wish really to go and get married again all at once; I wrote to Skipper Gronlund of Arendal—he was a cousin of mine—and asked if he and his wife would take the boy and look after him. They were willing enough, the more by reason they'd only one child of their own Little Marie, a girl of the same age."
"So they took the boy?"
"Yes. He was there for four years, and then I began to feel the want of him and went up to Arendal to see him. But what do you think happened then? Just as I got to Arendal there came a wire saying Gronlund's ship had gone to the bottom, and that was the end of Gronlund!"
"And then you married her?"
"Exactly. What else could I do? Amalie, Mrs. Gronlund that is, wouldn't give up the boy, and I couldn't tear him away by force, could I? Very well, I said, what must be must, man is but dust, and so we got married."
"Mrs. Gronlund was not altogether young, I suppose?"
"Nothing much to look at, more's the pity, but an excellent housekeeper and a good-hearted soul."
"And so it turned out happily after all?"