She was a past-master in the art
of grief, and, pending its extraction, a docile tear hung on her eyelid
and waited. The captain eyed her preparations with silent anger.
"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Kingdom, dabbing her eyes; "I expected it
somehow. I seemed to have a warning of it. Something seemed to tell me;
I couldn't explain, but I seemed to know."
She sniffed gently, and, wiping one eye at a time, kept the disengaged
one charged with sisterly solicitude upon her brother. The captain, with
steadily rising anger, endured this game of one-eyed bo-peep for five
minutes; then he rose and, muttering strange things in his beard, stalked
upstairs to his room.
Mrs. Kingdom, thus forsaken, dried her eyes and resumed her work. The
remainder of the family were in the kitchen ministering to the wants of a
misunderstood steward, and, in return, extracting information which
should render them independent of the captain's version.
"Was it very solemn, Sam?" inquired Miss Nugent, aged nine, who was
sitting on the kitchen table.
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