North was ready to cry. [Page 33] “Now, Mary, really!” she began. “Mother, I don’t care! I don’t like[Page 34] to say a thing like that, though I’m sure I always try to speak politely. But it’s the truth, and to save you I would tell the truth no matter how painful it was to do so.” [Page 34] “But I enjoy seeing people, and—” “It is bad for you to be tired,” Mary said, her thin face quivering still with the effort she had made; “and they sha’n’t tire you while I am here to protect you.” And her protection never flagged. When Captain Price called, she asked him to please converse in a low tone, as noise was bad for her mother. “He had been here a good while before I came in,” she defended herself to Mrs. North, afterwards; “and I’m sure I spoke politely.” The fact was, the day the Captain came, Miss North was out. Her mother had seen him pounding up the[Page 35] street, and hurrying to the door, called out, gayly, in her little, old, piping voice, “Alfred—Alfred Price!” [Page 35] The Captain turned and looked at her. There was just one moment’s pause; perhaps he tried to bridge the years, and to believe that it was Letty who spoke to him—Letty, whom he had last seen that wintry night, pale and weeping, in the slender green sheath of a fur-trimmed pelisse. If so, he gave it up; this plump, white-haired, bright-eyed old lady, in a wide-spreading, rustling black silk dress, was not Letty. She was Mrs. North. The Captain came across the street, waving his newspaper, and saying, “So you’ve cast anchor in the old port, ma’am?” “My daughter is not at home; do come in,” she said, smiling and nodding. Captain Price hesitated; then[Page 36] he put his pipe in his pocket and followed her into the parlor. “Sit down,” she cried, gayly. “Well, Alfred!” [Page 36] “Well—Mrs. North!” he said; and then they both laughed, and she began to ask questions: Who was dead? Who had so and so married? “There are not many of us left,” she said. “The two Ferris girls and Theophilus Morrison and Johnny
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