“Must ha' been,” said the Captain dryly. “Well, Honeysuckle, what did you do then?”
“Oh, that took some time!” said the child. “And afterward I fished a little, but I didn't catch anything, 'cept an old flounder, and he winked at me, so I put him back. And then I thought a long time—oh! a very long time, sitting like Patience on the doorstep. And suddenly, Daddy Captain, I thought about those boxes of clothes, and how you said they would be mine when I was big. And I measured myself against the doorpost, and found that I was very big. I thought I must be almost as big as you, but I s'pose I'd forgotten how big you were. So I went up, and opened one box, and I was just putting the dress on when you came in. You knew where it came from, of course, Daddy, the moment you saw it.”
The Captain nodded gravely, and pulled his long moustaches.
“Do you suppose my poor mamma wore it often?” the child went on, eagerly. “Do you think she looked like me when she wore it? Do I look as she did when you saw her?”
“Wal,” began the Captain, meditatively; but Star ran on without waiting for an answer.
“Of course, though, she looked very different, because she was dead. You are quite very positively sure my poor mamma was dead, Daddy Captain?”
“She were,” replied the Captain, with emphasis. “She were that, Pigeon Pie! You couldn't find nobody deader, not if you'd sarched for a week. Why, door nails, and Julius Caesar, and things o' that description, would ha' been lively compared with your poor ma when I see her. Lively! that's what they'd ha' been.”
The child nodded with an air of familiar interest, wholly untinged with sadness. “I think,” she said, laying her head against the old man's shoulder, and curling one arm about his neck, “I think I should like to hear about it again, please, Daddy. It's a long, long time since you told me the whole of it.”
“Much as a month, I should think it must be,” assented the Captain. “Why, Snowdrop, you know the story by heart, better'n I do, I believe. 'Pears to me I've told it reg'lar, once a month or so, ever since you were old enough to understand it.”
“Never mind!” said the Princess, with an imperious gesture. “That makes no difference. I want it now!”