“Thank you, Alfred!”
“My daughter-in-law is crying her eyes out,” the Captain sighed.
“Tck!” said Mrs. North; “Alfred, you have no sense. Let her cry. It’s good for her!”
“Oh no,” said the Captain, shocked.
“You’re a perfect slave to her,” cried Mrs. North.
“No more than you are to your daughter,” Captain Price defended himself; and Mrs. North sighed.
“We are just real foolish, Alfred, to listen to ’em. As if we didn’t know what was good for us.”
“People have interfered with us a good deal, first and last,” the Captain said, grimly.
The faint color in Mrs. North’s cheeks suddenly deepened. “So they have,” she said.
The Captain shook his head in a discouraged way; he took his pipe out of his pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. “I suppose I can stay at home, and let ’em get over it?”