Dilworth’s wife confessed coquettishly, that one would hardly take her to be a year or two older than her husband, would one? Mary North exclaimed, in utter astonishment: “is that all? Why, you look twelve years older!” Of course such truthfulness was far from genteel,—though Old Chester was not as displeased as you might have supposed.

[Page 23]While Miss North, timorous and sincere (and determined to be polite), was putting the house in order before sending for her mother, Old Chester invited her to tea, and asked her many questions about Letty and the late Mr. North. But nobody asked whether she knew that her opposite neighbor, Captain Price, might have been her father—at least that was the way Miss Ellen’s girls expressed it. Captain Price himself did not enlighten the daughter he did not have; but he went rolling across the street, and pulling off his big shabby felt hat, stood at the foot of the steps, and roared out: “Morning! Anything I can do for you?” Miss North, indoors, hanging window-curtains, her mouth full of tacks, shook her head. Then she removed the tacks and came to the front door.

[Page 23]

[Page 24]“Do you smoke, sir?”

[Page 24]

Captain Price removed his pipe from his mouth and looked at it. “Why! I believe I do, sometimes,” he said.

“I inquired,” said Miss North, smiling tremulously, her hands gripped hard together, “because, if you do, I will ask you to desist when passing our windows.”

Captain Price was so dumfounded that for a moment words failed him. Then he said, meekly, “Does your mother object to tobacco smoke, ma’am?”

“It is injurious to all ladies’ throats,” Miss North explained, her voice quivering and determined.

“Does your mother resemble you, madam?” said Captain Price, slowly.

“Oh no! my mother is pretty. She has my eyes, but that’s all.”

“I didn’t mean in looks,” said the[Page 25] old man; “she did not look in the least like you; not in the least! I mean in her views?”

[Page 25]

“Her views? I don’t think my mother has any particular views,” Miss North answered, hesitatingly; “I spare her all thought,” she ended, and her thin face bloomed suddenly with love.

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