“Strange there should be no letter from O'Shea. I was full certain we should have heard something before this.”
“Perhaps we may by this post, dear. It ought to have arrived by this time.”
“Then go and see, by all means. How I hate a post that comes of an evening! One ought to begin the day with one's letters; they are the evil fates, whose machinations all our efforts are directed against. They are, besides, the whispering of the storm that is brewing afar off, but is sure to overtake us. One ought to meet them with a well-rested brain and refreshed spirit, not wearied and jaded and unstrung by the day's toil.”
And the Captain prepared to obey, but not without a variety of precautions against catching cold, which seemed somewhat to try his daughter's patience.
“You really,” said she, with a half-bitter smile, “take very little account of the anxiety I must feel about my future husband.”
“Nonsense, dear; the O'Shea is not to be thought of. It would really be a gross misuse of wealth to share it with such a man.”
“So it might, if one were free to choose. But it's the old story, papa,” said she, with a sigh. “To be cured of the ague, one is willing to take arsenic. There, you are surely muffled enough now; lose no more time, and, above all things, don't get into a gossiping mood, and stay to talk with Trover, or be seduced by Mr. Winthrop's juleps, but come back at once, for I have a sort of feverish foreboding over me that I cannot control.”
“How silly that is, dear!—to have a stout heart on the high seas and grow cowardly in the harbor.”
“But are we in the harbor? Are we so very certain that the voyage is over?” said she, with increased eagerness, “But pray go for the letters, or I will myself.”
He set out at last, and she watched him as he shut the wicket and crossed out upon the high-road; and then, all alone as she sat, she burst into a passionate flood of tears. Was this the relief of a nature strained like an over-bent bow? Was it the sorrowful outburst of a spirit which, however bold and defiant to the world, was craven to itself; or was it simply that fear had mastered her, and that she felt the approach of the storm that was to shipwreck her?