—"Oh, yes! You've come to tell me, I suppose, that you're going to put a step-aunt-in-law over my head, only you don't know how to announce it," answered Capitola, little knowing how closely she had come to the truth; when, to her unbounded astonishment, Old Hurricane answered:
"Yes, my dear, that's just it!"
"What! My eyes! Oh, crickey!" cried Cap, breaking into her newsboy's slang, from mere consternation.
"Yes, my dear, it is perfectly true!" replied the old man, growing furiously red, and rubbing his face.
"Oh! oh! oh! Hold me! I'm 'kilt!'" cried Cap, falling back in her chair in an inextinguishable fit of laughter, that shook her whole frame. She laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes and looked at Old Hurricane, and every time she saw his confused and happy face she burst into a fresh paroxysm that seemed to threaten her life or her reason.
"Who is the happy—— Oh, I can't speak! Oh, I'm 'kilt' entirely!" she cried, breaking off in the midst of her question and falling into fresh convulsions.
"It's no new love, Cap; it's my old wife!" said Old Hurricane, wiping his face.
This brought Capitola up with a jerk! She sat bolt upright, gazing at him with her eyes fixed as if in death.
"Cap," said Old Hurricane, growing more and more confused, "I've been a married man more years than I like to think of! Cap, I've—I've a wife and grown-up son! Why do you sit there staring at me, you little demon? Why don't you say something to encourage me, you little wretch?"
"Go on!" said Cap, without removing her eyes.