"My dear," said Mrs. Courland, "I wish you would try to forget your sea terms when you are in the society of ladies. I observed Miss Pendray looking at you with astonishment several times, when you were giving out some of your elegant expressions."
"I wish the squire had been home," replied her husband, without noticing the remarks of his wife; for he was accustomed to these rebukes,--not that she said them or meant them ill-naturedly, but she inherited her mother's aristocratic notions, and could not endure anything approaching to vulgarity or coarseness. She had not had very much of her husband's society in former years, for he was only at home for a few months at a time, and then his time was very much occupied, being the principal owner of the ship he commanded. But, now he had nothing to do, and was at home constantly, so that his elegant and accomplished wife had more frequent opportunities of experiencing his rough sailor-like manner; not that he was at all a coarse-minded man,--it was only his manner, which he had naturally imbibed from the persons he was obliged to come into such close contact with on board ship. He was naturally kind-hearted in the extreme, and would do any good that lay in his power for a fellow creature in distress; but he couldn't overcome his habit of using nautical expressions, nor indeed did he try to now. He did try at first, years ago, to speak a little more "dandified," as he called it, to please his beautiful wife; but he found it too hard to accomplish, and so he gave up trying, and contented himself with listening to her lectures, good-humouredly, which he said came in at one ear and went out at the other: and so he had listened patiently now to her remarks, and then continued the conversation as if nothing had been said on the "vexed" subject by his sensitive wife.
"I wish the squire had been home," said he; "he's a jolly fellow. I hate to be stuck up with a parcel of palavering women, and be obliged to sit bolt upright in my chair and take out every word and look at it before I speak, or else be hauled over the coals for it."
"I'm sure you behaved very well to day, uncle," said Julia; "I saw Miss Pendray looking at you several times, as if she admired your blunt, straightforward manners."