I'm going
to open it. May I?

CAPT. G. Certainly, if you want to. I'd sooner you didn't though. I
don't ask to look at your letters to the Deer-court girl.

MRS. G. You'd better not, Sir! (Takes letter from envelope.) Now, may I
look? If you say no, I shall cry.

CAPT. G. You've never cried in my knowledge of you, and I don't believe
you could.

MRS. G. I feel very like it to-day, Pip. Don't be hard on me. (Reads
letter.) It begins in the middle, without any "Dear Captain Gadsby," or
anything. How funny!

CAPT. G. (Aside.) No, it's not Dear Captain Gadsby, or anything, now.
How funny!

MRS. G. What a strange letter! (Reads.) "And so the moth has come
too near the candle at last, and has been singed into--shall I say
Respectability? I congratulate him, and hope he will be as happy as he
deserves to be." What does that mean? Is she congratulating you about
our marriage?

CAPT. G. Yes, I suppose so.

MRS. G. (Still reading letter.) She seems to be a particular friend of
yours.

CAPT. G. Yes. She was an excellent matron of sorts--a Mrs.
Herriott--wife of a Colonel Herriott. I used to know some of her people
at Home long ago--before I came out.

MRS. G. Some Colonel's wives are young--as young as me. I knew one who
was younger.

CAPT. G. Then it couldn't have been Mrs. Herriott. She was old enough to
have been your mother, dear.

MRS. G. I remember now. Mrs. Scargill was talking about her at the
Dutfins' tennis, before you came for me, on Tuesday. Captain Mafflin
said she was a "dear old woman." Do you know, I think Mafilin is a very
clumsy man with his feet.

CAPT. G. (Aside.) Good old Jack! (Aloud.) Why, dear?

MRS. G. He had put his cup down on the ground then, and he literally
stepped into it. Some of the tea spirted over my dress--the grey one. I
meant to tell you about it before.

CAPT. G. (Aside.) There are the makings of a strategist about Jack
though his methods are coarse. (Aloud.) You'd better get a new dress,
then. (Aside.) Let us pray that that will turn her.

MRS. G. Oh, it isn't stained in the least. I only thought that I'd tell
you. (Returning to letter.) What an extraordinary person! (Reads.)
"But need I remind you that you have taken upon yourself a charge of
wardship"--what in the world is a charge of wardship?--"which as you
yourself know, may end in Consequences"--

CAPT. G. (Aside.) It's safest to let em see everything as they come
across it; but 'seems to me that there are exce