'What do yo' mean?' asked Sylvia, stirred out of all assumed indifference. 'The captain! is that' (not 'Charley', she could not use that familiar name to the pretty young wife before her) 'yo'r husband?'
'Yes, you knew him, didn't you? when he used to be staying with Mr Corney, his uncle?'
'Yes, I knew him; but I don't understand. Will yo' please to tell me all about it, ma'am?' said Sylvia, faintly.
'I thought your husband would have told you all about it; I hardly know where to begin. You know my husband is a sailor?'
Sylvia nodded assent, listening greedily, her heart beating thick all the time.
'And he's now a Commander in the Royal Navy, all earned by his own bravery! Oh! I am so proud of him!'
So could Sylvia have been if she had been his wife; as it was, she thought how often she had felt sure that he would be a great man some day.
'And he has been at the siege of Acre.'
Sylvia looked perplexed at these strange words, and Mrs. Kinraid caught the look.
'St Jean d'Acre, you know—though it's fine saying "you know", when I didn't know a bit about it myself till the captain's ship was ordered there, though I was the head girl at Miss Dobbin's in the geography class—Acre is a seaport town, not far from Jaffa, which is the modern name for Joppa, where St Paul went to long ago; you've read of that, I'm sure, and Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elijah was once, all in Palestine, you know, only the Turks have got it now?'