"And your father before you?"
"Yes, and my gran'father before him, and hisn fust."
"Ah, I see—an old homestead; and that portrait in my room is the wife of 'hisn'?"
"Not exactly—we never had no womenfolks in our family ez looked like that—stronger built is ourn, with more backbone, and none of that lackadaisical look raound the eyes."
"Pre-cisely," answered Flint. "And how does it happen that this lackadaisical-eyed portrait has hung so long without getting packed off to the garret?"
"Wall, you see," began Marsden, slowly and [Pg 23] with evident relish, "thet's quite a story about thet theer."
"Yes?" said Flint, with a rising inflection which invited further confidence.
"Yes, indeed," answered Marsden, expanding still further and stroking his chin-whisker as he proceeded. "You see 't wuz this way—Captain Wagstaff—he wuz the portrait's uncle—wall, he wuz in command of a fleet that lay in the harbor up yonder, in the Revolutionary War. When he wuz ashore, he spent most of his time to this haouse; and when his sister down to Philadelphy died, leavin' this daughter and no one to take care on her, he brought her on here to live with him. He'd been brought up a Quaker,—'Friend,' he called it,—though he did fight for his country, and right enough, sez I. Wall, this girl,—Ruth, her name wuz,—she came here and stopped awhile; and then there wuz a fight off the shore between the Captain's ship and a British cruiser. The cruiser wuz run down and sunk; but one of the officers they picked up waounded and brought ashore, to this house, and Miss Ruth she set to work takin' care on him.
"Wall, what with cossettin' of him, and all sorts of philanderin', she got kinder soft on him, and one day, fust any one knowed, she'd jest run off with him."
"And what did the Captain say to that?" [Pg 24] asked Flint, more interested than he was wont to be in Marsden's narratives.