“Pardon me for being so slow,” she said, becoming instantly a courteous lady. “I think I am getting old and dignified. The wings have gone from my feet.”
The Halcyon had come, and the Yorkes immediately made the acquaintance of its master. Dick and Edith went down to the ship to see him, and persuaded him to go home to tea with them. The big, bashful sailor was not accustomed to the society of ladies, and had the impression that there was something cabalistic in good-breeding. But he found himself quite at ease with the family, after a while, and was convinced that they were not aware of the few blunders he committed in the first embarrassment of meeting them. Some diversion had always taken place at precisely the right moment to screen him, and soon his self-possession was quite restored. He left
the house that night highly pleased with his visit.
“They seem to me perfectly kind and natural people,” he said to Dick, as they walked through the woods together. “Your Edith, it is true, is rather grand, but in a sweet, child-like way, and Miss Melicent seems disposed to be a little on the high horse once in a while, but not much. I always thought that accomplished ladies were more airy, but I don’t see that these do any great things.”
“True,” Dick answered; “but mark the things which they do not do.”
They were much together after that, and Mrs. Yorke and her daughters went on board the Halcyon, and were entertained there. Carl had been afraid to have his mother venture on board the ship, and had charged himself especially with the care of her, but his solicitude was not needed. He was both pleased and amused by the simplicity and tenderness with which their gigantic host smoothed every smallest obstruction from her path and spared her every exertion. There had been a momentary flash of angry surprise when he saw his mother lifted over an obstructing timber in Captain Cary’s arms; but the sailor’s face was so absolutely anxious and kind, and Mrs. Yorke laughed so merrily over the naïf gallantry, that he instantly perceived the folly of resenting it.
“My dear,” Mrs. Yorke whispered to Clara, “he is like one’s grandfather, grandmother, and all one’s aunts and uncles, in one. It’s a pity he hasn’t a wife, he would be so good to her.”
Clara blushed slightly. She had been thinking some such thought herself.
The intercourse gave the Yorkes a fresh and novel sensation. It was so different from anything they had
ever had before, and, at the same time, so pleasant. It came like a breath of pure sea-air into a warm and scented drawing-room. They were not so mummified by convention that they could not appreciate this simple, unconventional nature, in which they found a noble delicacy.