care on the part of elderly unmarried sisters, but I knew Mari'
Harris to be a very common-place, inelegant person, who would have
no such standards; it was plain that the captain was his own
attentive valet. He sat looking at me expectantly. I could not
help thinking that, with his queer head and length of thinness, he
was made to hop along the road of life rather than to walk. The
captain was very grave indeed, and I bade my inward spirit keep
close to discretion.

"Poor Mrs. Begg has gone," I ventured to say. I still wore my
Sunday gown by way of showing respect.

"She has gone," said the captain,--"very easy at the last, I
was informed; she slipped away as if she were glad of the
opportunity."

I thought of the Countess of Carberry, and felt that history
repeated itself.

"She was one of the old stock," continued Captain Littlepage,
with touching sincerity. "She was very much looked up to in this
town, and will be missed."

I wondered, as I looked at him, if he had sprung from a line
of ministers; he had the refinement of look and air of command
which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of New
England. But as Darwin says in his autobiography, "there is no
such king as a sea-captain; he is greater even than a king or a
schoolmaster!"