“Nothing, whatever.”
Nina shuddered. “There is a great deal of cruelty in the world. ’Steban tells me of it, and we help a little. I assure you I am quite a changed character from former days.”
“Indeed!” said Mrs. Eversleigh, with polite incredulity. She was inwardly wondering how her young friend had been able to retain so much of girlish freshness, sweetness, and caprice.
“I am far more serious,” continued Nina, soberly, still bent on revealing the depths which time actually had added to her nature; “you would like me far better now. I don’t see how you could have stood me two years ago.”
“You were slightly impossible,” said Mrs. Eversleigh, suppressing her amusement.
“I used to dislike English people, and I just loved to talk nonsense; and I didn’t mean all I said; and though I knew more than people thought I knew, I had no conception of the realities of life, and—”
“In short, you were quite a depraved character,” remarked her old friend.
Nina stopped short. They were all laughing at her, and she good-naturedly joined in their amusement.
“Your life sounds a pleasant one,” said Mrs. Eversleigh, after a time, and with a faint sigh. “You don’t have that monster fashionable life always biting and worrying at your heels, and urging you into all kinds of excesses.”
“Stay with us for awhile, Mrs. Eversleigh,” said Captain Fordyce; “and perhaps we will get you out of all this. I want a first mate for my ship. Your husband is a man of many parts, I think we should work well together.”