“You––and you let me tell you all that nonsense about him and me!”
“You’re doing me an injustice, Miss Pipkin. I did not know one thing about all this till last night.”
Captain Pott had risen. In his eagerness he stretched out his arms to the confused housekeeper. She turned from staring at the minister, and like a bewildered animal fled blindly in the direction of the kitchen. She found herself, instead, in the seaman’s arms. Here she stuck, and with hysterical sobs clung to the old man. Mr. McGowan came nearer. At sight of him she fled to his arms. For the next few minutes the practical, every-day 378 Miss Pipkin did things of which no one had ever imagined her capable. The Captain’s voice roused her.
“Here, young feller, you go loving where you’re wanted. I’ve been waiting for this too many years to be cheated out by a young rascal like you.” He seized the not unwilling Miss Pipkin, and pushed the minister in the direction of the kitchen.
“Clemmie, ain’t this grand?” asked the old man.
“It’s really been you all these years, Josiah.”
“Been me? You mean you’ve loved me all the time, Clemmie?”
“Um-hm,” she nodded vigorously. “But I was that stubborn that I wouldn’t give in. I always looked forward to your proposing. You ain’t proposed to me for a long time, Josiah.”
“But, Clemmie, are you sartin sure it’ll be all right now? If you get your rest, are you sartin you won’t feel different? Don’t you think you’d otter wait?”
“Josiah, ask me right now, so I can’t back 379 out, or get on another stubborn streak. I thought it all out ’longside Edna’s bed last night. She was raving, and calling for some one, poor thing, who she’d refused to marry when she was young. I said then and there that I wasn’t going to my grave with that kind of thing hanging over me. That is, if you ever asked me again.”