Gussie giggled.

“She’s as flat as a lath,” the Captain declared; “if it hadn’t been for her face, I wouldn’t have known whether she was coming bow or stern on.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Cyrus, “that that woman has some motive in bringing her mother back here; and right across the street, too!”

“What motive?” said Cyrus, mildly curious.

But Augusta waited for conjugal privacy to explain herself: “Cyrus, I worry so, because I’m sure that woman thinks she can catch your father again. Oh, just listen to that harmonicon down-stairs! It sets my teeth on edge!”

[Page 29]Then Cyrus, the silent, servile first mate, broke out: “Gussie, you’re a fool!”

[Page 29]

And Augusta cried all night, and showed herself at the breakfast-table lantern-jawed and sunken-eyed; and her father-in-law judged it wise to sprinkle his cigar ashes behind the stable.

The day that Mrs. North arrived in Old Chester, Mrs. Cyrus commanded the situation; she saw the daughter get out of the stage, and hurry into the house for a chair so that the mother might descend more easily. She also saw a little, white-haired old lady take that opportunity to leap nimbly, and quite unaided, from the swinging step.

“Now, mother!” expostulated Mary North, chair in hand, and breathless,[Page 30] “you might have broken your limb! Here, take my arm.”

[Page 30]

Meekly, after her moment of freedom, the little lady put her hand on that gaunt arm, and tripped up the path and into the house, where, alas! Augusta Price lost sight of them. Yet even she, with all her disapproval of strong-minded ladies, must have admired the tenderness of the man-o’-war’s-man. Miss North put her mother into a big chair, and hurried to bring a dish of curds.

“I’m not hungry,” protested Mrs. North.

“Never mind. It will do you good.”

With a sigh the little old lady ate the curds, looking about her with curious eyes. “Why, we’re right across the street from the old Price house!” she said.

[Page 31]“Did you know them, mother?” demanded Miss North.

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