She realized dimly that she should feel very, very badly because her
stepfather was dead. Mrs. Hobbs had told her that she should and seemed
to regard her as queerer than ever because she had not cried. But,
according to the housekeeper, Captain Hall was out of his troubles and
had gone where he would be happy for ever and ever. So it seemed to her
strange to be expected to cry on his account. He had not been happy
here in Ostable, or, at least, he had not shown his happiness in the way
other people showed theirs. To her he had been a big, bearded giant of
a man, whom she saw at infrequent intervals during the day and always
at night just before she went to bed. His room, with the old-fashioned
secretary against the wall, and the stuffed gull on the shelf, and the
books in the cupboard, and the polished narwhal horn in the corner, was
to her a sort of holy of holies, a place where she was led each evening
at nine o'clock, at first by Mrs. Bailey and, later, by Mrs. Hobbs,
to shake the hand of the big man who looked at her absently over his
spectacles and said good night in a voice not unkindly but expressing no
particular interest. At other times she was strictly forbidden to enter
that room.

Occasionally, but very rarely, she had eaten Sunday dinner with
Marcellus. She and the housekeeper usually ate together and Mr. Hall's
meals were served in what the child called "the smoke room," meaning the
apartment just described, which was at all times strongly scented with
tobacco. The Sunday dinners were stately and formal affairs and were
prefaced by lectures by the housekeeper concerning sitting up straight
and not disturbing Cap'n Hall by talking too much. On the whole
Mary-'Gusta was rather glad when the meals were over. She did not
dislike her stepfather; he had never been rough or unkind, but she had
always stood in awe of him and had felt that he regarded her as a "pesky