(“Oh,” she was saying to herself, “I do hope Mary’s out!)—Well, Alfred?” she said; but her voice was frightened.
The Captain stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned her to a seat. “Mrs. North,” he said, his face red, his eye hard, “some jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they’re females) into our affairs; and—”
“Oh, Alfred, isn’t it horrid in them?” said the old lady.
“Darn ’em!” said the Captain.
“It makes me mad!” cried Mrs. North; then her spirit wavered. “Mary is so foolish; she says she’ll—she’ll take me away from Old Chester. I laughed at first, it was so foolish. But when she said that—oh dear!”
“Well, but, my dear madam, say you won’t go. Ain’t you skipper?”
“No, I’m not,” she said, dolefully. “Mary brought me here, and she’ll take me away, if she thinks it best. Best for me, you know. Mary is a good daughter, Alfred. I don’t want you to think she isn’t. But she’s foolish. Unmarried women are apt to be foolish.”
The Captain thought of Gussie, and sighed. “Well,” he said, with the simple candor of the sea, “I guess there ain’t much difference in ’em, married or unmarried.”
“It’s the interference makes me mad,” Mrs. North declared, hotly.
“Damn the whole crew!” said the Captain; and the old lady laughed delightedly.