uggy, and old Jane, with tears in her eyes, came
out and spoke to him.

"Isn't this dreadful" she said to him. "Supper with that woman and there
all night, and back again as soon as he can get off this mornin'!"

"Perhaps he is not going to her house," Dick suggested. "He may have
business in town which he forgot yesterday."

"If he'd had it he'd forgot it," replied the old woman. "But he hadn't
none. He's gone to Maria Port's, and he may bring her back with him,
married tight and fast, for all you or me knows. It would be just like
his sailor fashion. When the captain's got anything to do he just does
it sharp and quick."

"I don't believe that," said Dick. "If he had had any such intention as
that he certainly would have mentioned it to you or to me."

The good woman shook her head. "When an old man marries a girl," she
said, "she just leads him wherever she wants him to go, and he gives up
everything to her, and when an old man marries a tough and seasoned and
smoked old maid like Maria Port, she just drives him wherever she wants
him to go, and he hasn't nothin' to say about it. It looks as if she
told him to come in this mornin', and he's gone. It may be for a
weddin', or it may be for somethin' else, but whatever it is, it'll be
her way and not his straight on to the end of the chapter."

Dick had nothing to answer. He was very much afraid that old Jane knew
what she was talking about, and his mind was occupied with trying to
decide what he, individually, ought to do about it. Old Jane was now
obliged to go to the toll-gate to attend to a traveler, but when she
came back she took occasion to say a few more words.

"It's hard on me, sir," she said, "at my age to make a change. I've
lived at this house, and I've took toll at that gate ever since I was a
girl, long before the captain came here, and I've been with him a long
time. My people used to own this house, but they all died, and when the
place was sold and the captain bought it, he heard about me, and he said
I should always have charge of the old toll-gate when he wasn't
attendin' to it himself, just the same as when my father was alive and
was toll-gate keeper, and I was helpin' him. But I've got to go now, and
where I'm goin' to is more'n I know. But I'd rather go to the county
poorhouse than stay here, or anywhere else, with Maria Port. She's a
regular boa-constrictor, that woman is! She's twisted herself around
people before this and squeezed the s