Quaint Courtships | Page 4

and sailed in less
than a week. They did not see each other again.
But the end of the story was not romantic at all. Letty, although she
crept about for a while in deep disgrace, and brooded upon death--that
interesting impossibility, so dear to youth,--married, if you please!
when she was twenty, and went away to live. When Alfred came back,
seven years later, he got married, too. He married a Miss Barkley. He
used to go away on long voyages, so perhaps he wasn't really fond of
her. We tried to think so, for we liked Captain Price.
In our day Captain Price was a widower. He had given up the sea, and
settled down to live in Old Chester; his son, Cyrus, lived with him, and
his languid daughter-in-law--a young lady of dominant feebleness, who
ruled the two men with that most powerful domestic rod--foolish
weakness. This combination in a woman will cause a mountain (a
masculine mountain) to fly from its firm base; while kindness, justice,
and good sense leave it upon unshaken foundations of selfishness. Mrs.
Cyrus was a Goliath of silliness; when billowing black clouds heaped
themselves in the west on a hot afternoon, she turned pale with
apprehension, and the Captain and Cyrus ran for four tumblers, into
which they put the legs of her bed, where, cowering among the feathers,
she lay cold with fear and perspiration. Every night the Captain
screwed down all the windows on the lower floor; in the morning
Cyrus pulled the screws out. Cyrus had a pretty taste in horseflesh, but
Gussie cried so when he once bought a trotter that he had long ago
resigned himself to a friendly beast of twenty-seven years, who could
not go much out of a walk because he had string-halt in both hind legs.
But one must not be too hard on Mrs. Cyrus. In the first place, she was
not born in Old Chester. But, added to that, just think of her name! The
effect of names upon character is not considered as it should be. If one

is called Gussie for thirty years, it is almost impossible not to become
gussie after a while. Mrs. Cyrus could not be Augusta; few women can;
but it was easy to be gussie--irresponsible, silly, selfish. She had a
vague, flat laugh, she ate a great deal of candy, and she was afraid
of--But one cannot catalogue Mrs. Cyrus's fears. They were as the
sands of the sea for number. And these two men were governed by
them. Only when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed will it be
understood why a man loves a fool; but why he obeys her is obvious
enough: Fear is the greatest power in the world; Gussie was afraid of
thunder-storms, or what not; but the Captain and Cyrus were afraid of
Gussie! A hint of tears in her pale eyes, and her husband would sigh
with anxiety and Captain Price slip his pipe in his pocket and sneak out
of the room. Doubtless Cyrus would often have been glad to follow
him, but the old gentleman glared when his son showed a desire for his
company.
"Want to come and smoke with me? 'Your granny was Murray!'--you're
sojering. You're first mate; you belong on the bridge in storms. I'm
before the mast. Tend to your business!"
It was forty-eight years before Letty and Alfred saw each other
again--or at least before persons calling themselves by those old names
saw each other. Were they Letty and Alfred--this tousled, tangled,
good-humored old man, ruddy and cowed, and this small, bright-eyed
old lady, led about by a devoted daughter? Certainly these two persons
bore no resemblance to the boy and girl torn from each other's arms
that cold December night. Alfred had been mild and slow; Captain
Price (except when his daughter-in-law raised her finger) was a
pleasant old roaring lion. Letty had been a gay, high-spirited little
creature, not as retiring, perhaps, as a young female should be, and
certainly self-willed; Mrs. North was completely under the thumb of
her daughter Mary. Not that "under the thumb" means unhappiness;
Mary North desired only her mother's welfare, and lived fiercely for
that single purpose. From morning until night (and, indeed, until
morning again, for she rose often from her bed to see that there was no
draught from the crack of the open window), all through the
twenty-four hours she was on duty.
When this excellent daughter appeared in Old Chester and said she was
going to hire a house, and bring her mother back to end her days in the

home of her girlhood, Old Chester displayed a friendly interest; when
she decided upon a house on Main Street, directly opposite Captain
Price's, it began to recall