“Elizabeth and her mother are still away, I suppose?” said Flower, after a pause.
His uncle nodded.
“So, of course, you needn’t do much love-making till they come back,” said his nephew; “it’s waste of time, isn’t it?”
“I’ll just keep my hand in,” said Captain Barber, thoughtfully. “I can’t say as I find it disagreeable. I was always one to take a little notice of the sects.”
He got up to go indoors. “Never mind about them,” he said, as his nephew was about to follow with the chair and his tobacco-jar; “Mrs. Church likes to do that herself, and she’d be disappointed if anybody else did it.”
His nephew followed him to the house in silence, listening later on with a gloomy feeling of alarm to the conversation at the supper-table. The rôle of gooseberry was new to him, and when Mrs. Church got up from the table for the sole purpose of proving her contention that Captain Barber looked better in his black velvet smoking-cap than the one he was wearing he was almost on the point of exceeding his duties.
He took the mate into his confidence the next day, and asked him what he thought of it. Fraser said that it was evidently in the blood, and, being pressed with some heat for an explanation, said that he meant Captain Barber’s blood.
“It’s bad, any way I look at it,” said Flower; “it may bring matters between me and Elizabeth to a head, or it may end in my uncle marrying the woman.”
“Very likely both,” said Fraser, cheerfully. “Is this Mrs. Church good-looking?”
“I can hardly say,” said Flower, pondering.