They had expected her to return in a shabby, or even needy, condition,
and now they had stories of delightful weeks at a hotel in San Francisco,
and beheld their poor shipwrecked neighbor dressed more handsomely than
they had ever seen her, and with a new trunk standing in the lower hall
which must contain something.
Mrs. Cliff began by telling the truth, and from this course she did not
intend to depart. She said that the captain of the _Castor_ was a just
and generous man, and, as far as was in his power, he had reimbursed the
unfortunate passengers for their losses. But as every one knows the
richest steamship companies are seldom so generous to persons who may be
cast away during transportation as to offer them long sojourns at hotels,
with private parlors and private servants, and to send them home in
drawing-room cars, with cloaks trimmed with real sealskin, the questions
became more and more direct, and all Mrs. Cliff could do was to stand
with her back against the captain's generosity, as if it had been a rock,
and rely upon it for defence.
But when the neighbors had all gone home, and the trunk had to be opened,
so that it could be lightened before being carried up-stairs, the remarks
of Willy and Betty cut clean to the soul of the unfortunate possessor of
its contents. Of course, the captain had not actually given her this
thing, and that thing, and the other, or the next one, but he had allowed
her a sum of money, and she had expended it according to her own
discretion.
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