Good Mrs. Simmons surveyed him tenderly through her glasses, and instantly saw there had something unusual happened. Could it be—oh! if it only could be—that he had put off the old man, which is sin! She longed to ask him, yet, with a woman's natural delicacy, she determined to find out without direct questioning.
"Good season, cap'en?" she inquired.
"A No. 1, ma'am—positively first-class," replied the captain.
"Hed good health—no ager?" she continued.
"Never was better, my dear woman—healthy right to the top notch," he answered.
"It must be," said good Mrs. Simmons, to herself—"it can't be nothin' else. Bless the Lord!"
This pious sentiment she followed up by a hymn, whose irregularities of time and tune were fully atoned for by the spirit with which she sung. A knock at the door interrupted her.
"Come in!" she cried.
Captain Sam entered, and laid a good-sized, flat flask on the table, saying:
"I've just been unpackin', an' I found this; p'r'aps you ken use it fur cookin'. It's no use to me; I've sworn off drinkin'."