“Lady!” said the Captain. “She’s a man-o’-war’s-man in petticoats.”
Gussie giggled.
“She’s as flat as a lath,” the Captain declared; “if it hadn’t been for her face, I wouldn’t have known whether she was coming bow or stern on.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Cyrus, “that that woman has some motive in bringing her mother back here; and right across the street, too!”
“What motive?” said Cyrus, mildly curious.
But Augusta waited for conjugal privacy to explain herself: “Cyrus, I worry so, because I’m sure that woman thinks she can catch your father again. Oh, just listen to that harmonicon down-stairs! It sets my teeth on edge!”
Then Cyrus, the silent, servile first mate, broke out: “Gussie, you’re a fool!”
And Augusta cried all night, and showed herself at the breakfast-table lantern-jawed and sunken-eyed; and her father-in-law judged it wise to sprinkle his cigar ashes behind the stable.
The day that Mrs. North arrived in Old Chester, Mrs. Cyrus commanded the situation; she saw the daughter get out of the stage, and hurry into the house for a chair so that the mother might descend more easily. She also saw a little, white-haired old lady take that opportunity to leap nimbly, and quite unaided, from the swinging step.