“Nay, nay, brother; we must be charitable. Remember her youth and inexperience,” the parson mildly remonstrated.
“Well, I ain’t likely to forget it. It’s been a dear experience to me; and I won’t have anything more to do with them.”
“Don’t say that, Paul,” said Mrs. Thompson, rising from her chair. “They need kindness more than ever. Their poor mother can no longer guide them: shall we desert them now?”
“Guide them! Stuff! She never did guide them. If she had, she’d have been saved all this trouble.”
“Well, well, they’re in the Lord’s hands,” said the parson; “in his hands who suffers not a sparrow to fall to the ground without his notice. Leave all to him.”
The parson put on his hat, shouldered his rake, and departed. Mrs. Thompson attended him to the door, returned, folded up her work, and left the room. The captain followed her motions with his eyes. Something was wrong. There was no heart in his obstinacy. He evidently felt ill at ease. He walked about the room rapidly, as though endeavoring to rouse up something like an angry spirit; but the fire would not kindle. Instead of the angry flash which should have shone in his eye, there was a tear, and the muscles of his mouth quivered with suppressed emotion. Mrs. Thompson entered the room, equipped in bonnet and shawl.
“What! going out again, Rebecca?”
“Yes, Paul; I am going at once.” Mrs. Thompson looked almost defiantly at her husband, expecting the next question, and fully prepared to answer it. But the second question was indefinitely postponed. It trembled on the captain’s lips, but something in his wife’s face told him if he asked it his power to rule was gone forever.
“Well, don’t be gone long; it’s lonesome here without you.”
Mrs. Thompson seemed in turn disappointed, but she said nothing, and departed. The captain took a seat upon the sofa, whence he had a view of the road, and deliberately watched his wife.