"How can I say 'ay' or 'no' to that?"
"Then explain more at length; but briefly."
"Prithee let that stand. Suffice it to say a man—a friend of mine—was in mortal peril, and his sister and I resolved to save him."
"Sister! Ah, I begin to see a light. Is she with you?"
"Ay, and I have promised her a welcome from thee and my mother fit to heal her sore heart."
"Well, well, we'll come to that later. Now what befell the ketch?"
"Why, the fog befell us first, and then Dick Ingle befell us, and then the devil befell us; but here we are in spite of all three; and, Mother, thou wilt be good to her, wilt thou not?"
The crisis had come to Elizabeth Huntoon, as it comes to every mother—gradually to some, suddenly to others—when she realizes that her supreme place is gone forever. Henceforth, for her, affection and esteem and a comfortable suite of dowager apartments in her child's heart; but the absolute sway, the power, the firstness at an end.
The blood surged back from Mistress Huntoon's face, leaving it gray, and for the first time with the touch of age upon it, so that one could know how she would look as an old woman.