It must not, however, be supposed from this that Colonel Kingsward was not a good husband. He had always been like a lover, though a somewhat peremptory one, to his wife. And without him her young, gay, pleasure-loving ways, her love of life and amusement might have made her a much less successful personage, and not the example of every virtue that she was. Had Mrs. Kingsward had the upper hand, the family would have been a very different family, and its career probably a very broken, tumultuous, happy-go-lucky career. It was that strong hand which had controlled and guided her, which had been, as people say, the making of Mrs. Kingsward; and though she feared his severity in the present crisis, she yet felt the most unspeakable relief from the baffled, helpless condition in which she had looked at her children, feeling herself all unable to cope with them in the presence of papa.
“I wonder if he thinks we are cabbages,” was Bee’s indignant exclamation as he turned his back upon them.
“Apparently,” said Charlie, coming a little out of his sullenness. “Look here, you girls, get into this omnibus—happily we’ve got an omnibus—with the little things, while I go to the Custom House to get the luggage through.”
“Betty, you get in,” said Bee. “I will go with you, Charlie, for I have got mamma’s keys.”
“Can’t you give them to me?” Charlie cast a gloomy look about, thinking that Leigh might perhaps be somewhere awaiting a word, a thought which now for the first time traversed Bee’s mind, too.
“Then, Betty, you had better go with him, for he doesn’t know half the boxes,” she said.
“Oh, you can come yourself if you like,” said Charlie, feeling in that case that this was the safest arrangement after all.
“No, Betty had better go. Betty, you know Moulsey’s box and that new basket that mamma brought me before we left the Baths.”
“Come along yourself, quick, Bee.”
“No, I shall stop in the omnibus.”