Agnes's voice made answer, as she descended an inner stair which led to the
bedrooms above--

"Mother's gone to church, sir."

"Gone to church!" I said, a vague pang darting through me as I thought
whether I had forgotten any service; but the next moment I recalled what
the old woman had herself told me of her preference for the church during a
storm.

"O yes, Agnes, I remember!" I said; "your mother thinks the weather bad
enough to take to the church, does she? How do you come to be here now?
Where is your husband?"

"He'll be here in an hour or so, sir. He don't mind the wet. You see, we
don't like the old people to be left alone when it blows what the sailors
call 'great guns.'"

"And what becomes of his mother then?"

"There don't be any sea out there, sir. Leastways," she added with a quiet
smile, and stopped.

"You mean, I suppose, Agnes, that there is never any perturbation of the
elements out there?"

She laughed; for she understood me well enough. The temper of Joe's mother
was proverbial.