The following Sunday Captain Joe shaved himself with the greatest care,—that is, he slashed his face as full of cuts as a Heidelberg student’s after a duel; squeezed his big broad shoulders into his black coat,—the one inches too tight across the back, the cloth all in corrugated wrinkles; tugged at his stiff starched collar until his face was purple; hauled taut a sleazy cravat; and, in a determined quarterdeck voice rarely heard from him, ordered Aunty Bell to get on her best clothes, call Betty, and come with him. “What in natur’ ’s got into ye, Cap’n Joe?” “Church’s got inter me, and you an’ Betty’s goin’ along.” “Ye ain’t never goin’ to church, be ye?” No wonder Aunty Bell was thunderstruck. Neither of them had been inside of a church since they moved to Keyport. Sunday was the captain’s day for getting rested, and Aunty Bell always helped him. “I ain’t, ain’t I? That’s all ye know, Jane Bell. You git Betty an’ come along, jes’ ’s I tell ye. I’m a-runnin’ this ship.” There was that peculiar look in the captain’s eye and tone in his voice that his wife knew too well. It was never safe to resist him in one of these moods. Betty burst into tears when the little woman told her, and said she dared not go, and couldn’t, until a second quick, not-to-be-questioned order resounded up the staircase:— “Here, now, that church bell’s purty nigh done ringin’. We got ter git aboard ’fore the gangplank’s drawed in.” “Come along, child,” said Aunty Bell. “’T ain’t no use; he’s got one o’ his spells on. Which church be ye goin’ to, anyway?” she called to him, as they came downstairs. “Methodist or Dutch?” “Don’t make no difference,—fust one we come to; an’ Betty’s goin’ to set plumb in the middle ’tween you an’ me, jes’ so’s folks kin see. I ain’t goin’ to have no funny business, nor hand-whispers, nor head-shakin’s about the little gal from nobody along this shore, from the preacher down, or somebody’ll git hurted.” All through the service—he had marched down the middle aisle and taken the front seat nearest the pulpit—he sat bolt upright, like a corporal on guard, his eyes on the minister, his ears alert. Now and then he would sweep his glance around, meeting the wondering looks of the congregation, who had lost interest in everything about them but the three figures in the front pew. Then, with a satisfied air, now that neither the speaker nor his hearers showed anything but respectful curiosity, and no spoken word from the pulpit bore the remotest connection with the subject uppermost in his mind,—no Magdalens nor Prodigal Sons, nor anything of like significance (there is no telling what would have happened had there been),—he settled himself again, and looked straight at the minister.