The Captain stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned her to a seat. “Mrs. North,” he said, his face red, his eye hard, “some jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they're females) into our affairs; and--”
“It makes me mad!” cried Mrs. North; then her spirit wavered. “Mary is so foolish; she says she'll--she'll take me away from Old Chester. I laughed at first, it was so foolish. But when she said that-oh _dear!_”
“Well, but, my dear madam, say you won't go. Ain't you skipper?”
“No, I'm not,” she said, dolefully. “Mary brought me here, and she'll take me away, if she thinks it best. Best for _me_, you know. Mary is a good daughter, Alfred. I don't want you to think she isn't. But she's foolish. Unmarried women are apt to be foolish.”
The Captain thought of Gussie, and sighed. “Well,” he said, with the simple candor of the sea, “I guess there ain't much difference in 'em, married or unmarried.”
“It's the interference makes me mad,” Mrs. North declared, hotly.
“Damn the whole crew!” said the Captain; and the old lady laughed delightedly.
“My daughter-in-law is crying her eyes out,” the Captain sighed.
“Tck!” said Mrs. North; “Alfred, you have no sense. Let her cry. It's good for her!”
“You're a perfect slave to her,” cried Mrs. North.
“No more than you are to your daughter,” Captain Price defended himself; and Mrs. North sighed.
“We are just real foolish, Alfred, to listen to 'em. As if we didn't know what was good for us.”
“People have interfered with us a good deal, first and last,” the Captain said, grimly.
The faint color in Mrs. North's cheeks suddenly deepened. “So they have,” she said.
The Captain shook his head in a discouraged way; he took his pipe out of his pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. “I suppose I can stay at home, and let 'em get over it?”
“Come oftener!” cried the old lady. “Let 'em get over it by getting used to it.”
Captain Price looked doubtful. “But how about your daughter?”
Mrs. North quailed. “I forgot Mary,” she admitted.
“I don't bother you, coming to see you, do I?” the Captain said, anxiously.
“Why, Alfred, I love to see you. If our children would just let us alone!”
“First it was our parents,” said Captain Price. He frowned heavily. “According to other people, first we were too young to have sense; and now we're too old.” He took out his worn old pouch, plugged some shag into his pipe, and struck a match under the mantelpiece. He sighed, with deep discouragement.