“And when the wild fit is over, and my husband hears of what has been done, you will be careful not to let him know that it was I who thought of it?”
“You shall tell him yourself, Mrs. Quiggin.”
“Ah! that can never, never be,” she said, with a sigh. And then she murmured softly, “I don’t know what my husband may have told you about me, Mr. Lovibond—”
Lovibond’s ardor overcame his prudence. “He has told me that you were an angel once—and he has wronged you, the dunce and dulbert—you are an angel still.”
While Lovibond was with Mrs. Quig-gin Jenny Crow was with Capt’n Davy. She had clutched at his invitation with secret delight. “Just the thing,” she thought. “Now, won’t I give the other simpleton a piece of my mind, too?” So she had bowled off to Fort Ann with a heart as warm as toast, and a tongue that was stinging hot. But when she had got there her purpose had suddenly changed. The first sight of Capt’n Davy’s face had conquered her. It was so child-like, and yet so manly, so strong and yet so tender, so obviously made for smiles like sunshine, and yet so full of the memories of recent tears! Jenny recalled her description of the sailor on the Head, and thought it no better than a vulgar caricature.
Davy wiped down a chair for her with the outside of his billycock and led her up to it with rude but natural manners. “The girl was a ninny to quarrel with a man like this,” she thought. Nevertheless she remembered her purpose of making him smart, and she stuck to her guns for a round or two.
“It’s rael nice of you to come, ma’am,” said Davy.
“It’s more than you deserve,” said Jenny.
“I shouldn’t wonder but you think me a blundering blocket,” said Davy.
“I didn’t think you had sense enough to know it,” said Jenny.