“Dear me,” said Mrs. Kingdom.

“He don’t look like the same feller now,” continued the amiable Mrs. Kybird; “good living and good clothes ’ave worked wonders in ’im.  I’m sure if he’d been my own son I couldn’t ’ave done more for ’im, and, as for Kybird, he’s like a father to him.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Kingdom, again.

Mrs. Kybird looked at her.  It was on the tip of her tongue to call her a poll parrot.  She was a free-spoken woman as a rule, and it was terrible to have to sit still and waste all the good things she could have said to her in favour of unsatisfying pin-pricks.  She sat smouldering.

“I s’pose you miss the capt’in very much?” she said, at last.

“Very much,” was the reply.

“And I should think ’e misses you,” retorted Mrs. Kybird, unable to restrain herself; “’e must miss your conversation and what I might call your liveliness.”

Mrs. Kingdom turned and regarded her, and the red stole back to her cheeks again.  She smoothed down her dress and her hands trembled.  Both ladies were now regarding each other in a fashion which caused serious apprehension to the rest of the company.

“I am not a great talker, but I am very careful whom I converse with,” said Mrs. Kingdom, in her most stately manner.

“I knew a lady like that once,” said Mrs. Kybird; “leastways, she wasn’t a lady,” she added, meditatively.

Mrs. Kingdom fidgeted, and looked over piteously at her niece; Mrs. Kybird, with a satisfied sniff, sat bolt upright and meditated further assaults.  There were at least a score of things she could have said about her adversary’s cap alone:  plain, straightforward remarks which would have torn it to shreds.  The cap fascinated her, and her fingers itched as she gazed at it.  In more congenial surroundings she might have snatched at it, but, being a woman of strong character, she suppressed her natural instincts, and confined herself to more polite methods of attack.

“Your nephew don’t seem to be in no hurry,” she remarked, at length; “but, there, direckly ‘e gets along o’ my daughter ’e forgits everything and everybody.”

“I really don’t think he is coming,” said Hardy, moved to speech by the glances of Miss Nugent.

“I shall give him a little longer,” said Mrs. Kybird.  “I only came ’ere to please ’im, and to get ’ome alone is more than I can do.”

Miss Nugent looked at Mr. Hardy, and her eyes were soft and expressive.  As plainly as eyes could speak they asked him to take Mrs. Kybird home, lest worse things should happen.

“Would it be far out of your way?” she asked, in a low voice.

“Quite the opposite direction,” returned Mr. Hardy, firmly.

“How I got ’ere I don’t know,” said Mrs. Kybird, addressing the room in general; “it’s a wonder to me.  Well, once is enough in a lifetime.”

“Mr. Hardy,” said Kate Nugent, again, in a low voice, “I should be so much obliged if you would take Mrs. Kybird away.  She seems bent on quarrelling with my aunt.  It is very awkward.”