But explanation was poor tribute to such beauty. Hugh glanced away to his father, then around to the commodore, up to Watson, and back again upon the spectacle. In a tone of remote allusion the grandfather spoke: "One wants a choice partnership for a sight like that."
Hugh cast back a sudden frown but it softened promptly to a smile which old Joy thought wonderfully sweet.
"Late sleepers," persisted the commodore, "know what they gain but not what they lose."
"Naw yit," audibly soliloquized the nurse, "what dey makes de early riseh lose." She added a soft high-treble "humph!" and gave herself a smile at least as sweet as Hugh's, which he repeated to her as he said:
"Good morning, auntie."
She courtesied. "Mawnin', suh." They need not have been more cordial had they just signed a great treaty.
The Votaress, swinging westward, left the picture behind, and the neglected exhorter, caring far less for cranes and clouds than for pelicans and sinners, reopened, this time on Hugh: "But that's anotheh thing 'at rises my bristles, ev'm ef it don't the bishop's."
"What rises them?" asked the solemn Hugh, the commodore's attention wandering.
"Shell I spit it out? Wall, it's folks a-proj-eckin' togetheh—church membehs an' non-membehs a-proj-eckin' togetheh—fo' to drownd Gawd A'mighty's chas-tisements in the devil's delights. You know they a-layin' fo' to do that on this boat this ve'y evenin'. You know they a-proj-eckin' fo' to raise filthy lucre by fiddlin' an' play-actin' an' a-singin' o' worl'ly songs an', to top all, a-dayncin'!—right oveh the heads o' the sick an' dyin', my Gawd! You know that, don't you?"