Captain Price removed his pipe from his mouth and looked at it. “Why! I believe I do, sometimes,” he said.
“I inquired,” said Miss North, smiling tremulously, her hands gripped hard together, “because, if you do, I will ask you to desist when passing our windows.”
Captain Price was so dumfounded that for a moment words failed him. Then he said, meekly, “Does your mother object to tobacco smoke, ma’am?”
“It is injurious to all ladies’ throats,” Miss North explained, her voice quivering and determined.
“Does your mother resemble you, madam?” said Captain Price, slowly.
“Oh no! my mother is pretty. She has my eyes, but that’s all.”
“I didn’t mean in looks,” said the old man; “she did not look in the least like you; not in the least! I mean in her views?”
“Her views? I don’t think my mother has any particular views,” Miss North answered, hesitatingly; “I spare her all thought,” she ended, and her thin face bloomed suddenly with love.
Old Chester rocked with the Captain’s report of his call; and Mrs. Cyrus told her husband that she only wished this lady would stop his father’s smoking.