"Where is the young woman now?" asked Job.
"Somewhere down at the docks," she thought. "Charley would know, if he was in, but he wasn't. He was in mischief, somewhere or other, she had no doubt. Boys always were. He would break his neck some day, she knew;" so saying, she quietly spat upon her fresh iron, to test its heat, and then went on with her business.
Job could have boxed her, he was in such a state of irritation. But he did not, and he had his reward. Charley came in, whistling with an air of indifference, assumed to carry off his knowledge of the lateness of the hour to which he had lingered about the docks.
"Here's an old man come to know where the young woman is who went out with thee this morning," said his mother, after she had bestowed on him a little motherly scolding.
"Where she is now, I don't know. I saw her last sailing down the river after the John Cropper. I'm afeared she won't reach her; wind changed and she would be under weigh, and over the bar in no time. She should have been back by now."
It took Job some little time to understand this, from the confused use of the feminine pronoun. Then he inquired how he could best find Mary.
"I'll run down again to the pier," said the boy; "I'll warrant I'll find her."
"Thou shalt do no such a thing," said his mother, setting her back against the door. The lad made a comical face at Job, which met with no responsive look from the old man, whose sympathies were naturally in favour of the parent; although he would thankfully have availed himself of Charley's offer, for he was weary, and anxious to return to poor Mrs. Wilson, who would be wondering what had become of him.
"How can I best find her? Who did she go with, lad?"
But Charley was sullen at his mother's exercise of authority before a stranger, and at that stranger's grave looks when he meant to have made him laugh.