The captain was hurrying her away, but she lingered a moment, and, with one of those speaking glances he had learnt to look for and love, put out her hand to the young sailor.
"Stay with me," he whispered; "it is not yet too late." She shook her head, "I believe you hate me!" he muttered, savagely.
"No," said Bluebell, impulsively saying more than she felt. "I like you only too well—but not enough for that."
"Any more last words?" said the skipper, who had stood aside good-humouredly, master of the situation.
"I have nothing further to say," said the young man, stiffly, making way for her to pass.
A minute more, and she was rowing to shore in the captain's boat, who then put her into a cab to drive to his home.
Now, the good skipper, such an autocrat on board his vessel, was by no means so under his own roof-tree, and sundry misgivings obtruded themselves as to the welcome he might receive from the wife of his bosom when a comely young lady was to be included in it.
"She'll no jeest like it at first," he muttered, half aloud; and as the moment approached and apprehension intensified, he repeated the remark still louder.
This moderate expectation was amply justified by the event. The good lady received the explanatory introduction with a snort, and a countenance expressive of contempt and disbelief, while she ironically "feared there would be nothing in the house good enough for her."
Bluebell endeavoured to excuse her unlucky presence, the best argument she could think of being that she would advertise for another situation immediately. Only for the fear of offending the captain, she would have added that she was prepared to pay for her board, which, by putting it on a business footing, would doubtless have commended itself to the dominant passion of her hostess's mind, and dispersed the misgivings she at present entertained of this "fine madam."