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The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank’s vehement, passionate disposition, which led him to resent his wife’s shyness and want of demonstrativeness as failures in conjugal duty. He was already tormenting himself, and her too, in a slighter degree, by apprehensions and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching absence at sea. At last he went to his father and urged him to insist upon Alice’s being once more received under his roof, the more especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself expressed it, ” breaking up,” and unwilling to undergo the excitement of a scene, yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to his wife; and, before Frank set sail, he had the comfort of seeing his wife installed in her old little garret in his father’s house. To have placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs. Wilson’s powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however, was, that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as housemaid had been filled up; and, even if it had not, she had forfeited Mrs. Wilson’s good opinion forever. She comforted her young master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would have a household of their own, of which, whatever service she might be in meanwhile, she should be sure to form a part. Almost the last action Frank did before setting sail was going with Alice to see Norah once more at her mother’s house, and then he went away.

Alice’s father-in-law grew more and more feeble as the winter advanced. She was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him; and, although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was, perhaps, more of peace than there had been for years, for Mrs. Wilson had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the young creature, expecting her first confinement in her husband’s absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain to attend on Captain Wilson.

Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for the East Indies and China) his father died. Alice was always glad to remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less property than people had been led by his style of living to expect, and what money there was was all settled upon his wife, and at her disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank was now first mate of his ship, and in another voyage or two would be captain. Meanwhile he had left her rather more than two hundred pounds (all his savings) in the bank.

It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter from the Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship having got there reached the office of the owners, and the captain’s wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her fears grew most oppressive At length the day came when, in reply to her inquiry at the Shipping Office, they told her that the owners had given up hope of ever hearing more of the “Betsy Jane,” and had sent in their claim upon the
underwriters. Now that he was gone forever, she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the dear friend, the sympathizing protector whom she should never see again–first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself–her own sole possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless and quiet–rather to the scandal of Mrs. Wilson, who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she saw, dwelling on his poor young widow’s desolate states and the helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction, as if she liked the excitement of the sorrowful story.