Of course Bax, having lost his wife, must consult his daughter, and when he had opened a door and shouted a little for Mary Ann there arrived a woman who looked old enough to be Bax's mother. Her face seemed to be dredged by time; the arcus senilis was more defined in her than in Bax; she looked seventy years old, and was but thirty-eight.
She curtseyed to the visitors, and then, after pursing her lips and knitting her brow, she replied to her father that Miss Armstrong could have the spare room over the sitting-room.
"Can I have a bedroom?" said Hardy.
Bax mused, looking at his daughter, and then said, "Not unless you sleeps along with me."
"With you?" laughed Hardy, looking at his stomach. "How much of you lies in bed all at once? That'll do for me," said he, and he jerked his head at a wide hair-sofa.
The father, the kitten, and the daughter looked a little strangely at Hardy and Julia Armstrong, as though before proceeding they wanted to see things in a clearer light. Hardy understanding this, spoke out with the bluntness of a sailor.
"Look here, Bax," said he, "I'm going to London to join my ship. I was bound away to-night, but on the road I fell in with this young lady, who lay in a swoon."
"Oh, dear, poor thing!" groaned Miss Bax.
"She came to, and I brought her here after learning that she was leaving her home for good on account of the barbarous behaviour of her stepmother—"
"Oh, I know, I know," interrupted Miss Bax.