"What more could youth and beauty ask? Ah, Jack, Jack!" sighed the
Duchess, "had you paid more attention to brooks and nightingales,
and stared at the moon in your youth, you might have been a green
young grandfather to-night, instead of a hoary old bachelor in a
shabby coat--sucking consolation from a clay pipe!"
"Consolation, mam! For what--I say, I demand to know for what?"
"Loneliness, Jack!"
"Eh, Duchess,--what, mam? Haven't I got my dear Clo, and the Bo'sun,
eh, mam--eh?"
"The Bo'sun, yes,--he smokes a pipe, but Cleone can't, so she looks
at the moon instead,--don't you dear?"
"The moon, God-mother?" exclaimed Cleone, bringing her gaze
earthwards on the instant. "Why I,--I--the moon, indeed!"
"And she listens to the brook, Jack,--don't you, my dove?"
"Why, God-mother, I--the brook? Of course not!" said Cleone.
"And, consequently, Jack, you mustn't expect to keep her much
longer--"
"Eh!" cried the bewildered Captain, "what's all this, Duchess,--I say,
what d'ye mean, mam?"
"Some women," sighed the Duchess, "some women never know they're in
love until they've married the wrong man, and then it's too late,
poor things.
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