Then came Hester’s three boys, Philip, Carl, and Robert. The last, an infant a year old, had been named by Edith for her father, and he was, consequently, her dearest pet.
“And now my troubles begin all over again,” soliloquized Clara, as she prepared to meet the sailor. “Captain Cary’s sudden flight seemed to cut the Gordian knot; but his coming back makes the affair more double-and-twisted than ever.”
She went to meet him, however, with an air of pleasant ease which betrayed no sign of complicated emotions, and asked of his adventures, and told all that had chanced to them during his absence, in the most friendly manner.
Nor was the sailor less dignified, though the blush that overspread his face when she first appeared showed a momentary agitation.
But this highly proper and decorous demeanor did not last long. Before many days, Mrs. Cleaveland perceived that her boys were not the chief attraction which Captain Cary found in her house. It was plain that he was devoted, heart and soul, to Clara; and it was plain, also, that Clara was fully aware of that devotion, and made her sport of it, so Hester thought.
It was true, the young woman did take a very high hand with her colossal admirer. She snubbed him, ordered him about, made him dance attendance, fetch and carry, and, altogether, tyrannized over him outrageously. And he bore it all with the magnanimous patience of a great Newfoundland dog petting and bearing with the freaks of a captious child. But he grew sober and silent, and lost his smiles day by day.
Sometimes Clara’s mood changed, and there would be little flits of sunshine, momentary gleams of kindness and penitence; but her victim learned that he could not depend on the continuance of such friendliness.
One day she had treated him so much worse than usual that, instead of staying to bear her raillery, he left the room, and went out into the garden where the children were playing. Clara seated herself in the window presently, and watched him, saw him set little Bob-o’-Lincoln, as they called the baby, on his shoulder, so that the child could reach the branch of a tree, saw him gently restrain and persuade Philip from throwing stones at the birds, and talk to Carl and Philip, when they came to blows about something, till they kissed each other. And through it all she read in his face the indication of a heart sad and ill at ease.
A yellow-bird flew over the garden, and dropped a pretty feather down. “Oh! that is what Aunt Clara likes,” cried Philip, running to pick it up. “She puts ’em in her books for marks.”