He felt very bitterly on the subject of his daughter's refusal to wear mourning; and now that the local papers had dealt so fully with the leading incident of the wreck, recognizing the popular element that it contained, he was angrier than ever. He asked her if she had any idea what the people would think of her if she were to appear among them without even a hint at the "weeds"; and when she replied that she had never thought of the people of Framsby and did not intend to begin now, he expressed himself as being ready to accept a compromise from her on this point. He tried to suggest to her the possibility of adopting such a costume as would make it plain that, while she deplored the past errors of her husband, she fully appreciated the elements of distinction associated with his last act.
That was what he had in his mind, but he did not quite succeed in giving definition to it with sufficient clearness to enforce its appeal to her sense of proportion; and when she told him so, he stalked away from her.
And that "romance of the sea," as one newspaper termed it, had apparently attracted the attention of the lady who had been responsible for Priscilla's meeting with the man, for the young widow received a long letter from her Aunt Emily the purport of which was to convince her that, in spite of what had been said at the time of her marriage, she, Aunt Emily, had been quite correct in the estimate she had formed of the character of Marcus Blaydon: he had shown himself to be a fine and noble gentleman--Aunt Emily harped on the word "gentleman," as usual. She ended her letter with a sentence which, reduced to the plainest English, was in effect: "Since I did so well for you once before, if you come to me now you may depend on my doing as much for you again."
Her father thought she should visit her aunt and give her another trial. (He wanted to get her as far away as possible from the observation of Framsby--to get her removed to some place where the absence of those distinguishing "weeds" would not arouse comment.)
Priscilla threw the letter, torn into shreds, out of the window, and some of the choicest paragraphs became the lining of a blackbird's nest that was being hastily papered and plastered for the coming of a new brood.