"Now Captain, I honestly think you are over reacting," Carolyn said slowly, as she prepared another zinnia to be potted. "Surely an athletic young girl these days should be able to play and be active, don't you agree?" "Perhaps," the tall figure of Captain Gregg grumbled from his perch on the rock wall beside her, "but in the company of nothing but young men, and so many of them. It isn't seemly."
Laughing as she brushed the dirt from her hands, she smiled fondly up at him. "Somehow, in all this time and in all our many conversations, I never realized exactly how much you sound like my mother, that is until now." Shaking her head slowly, she patted the earth around the base of the plant, grinning to herself as she watched his bluster built up steam.
"Your Mother? Your Mother! Madam, surely you are not equating me with an old woman are you?" "Well, obviously not in looks," she said, allowing herself a side glance up at him, "but you sound like her, and by the way, she wouldn't thank you for calling her old, I have to say." As he pushed off the wall and began pacing quickly along the walkway, Carolyn allowed herself another peek at his handsome figure. 'Alive or not,' she thought, 'I have to admit, I do get a lot of fun out of teasing him this way.' "Surely Madam," he paused, leaning close to her, "you don't really consider me so far out of date, do you?"
Unable to see the concern in his eyes with the sun at his back, Carolyn gave him a studied glance and shook her head slowly again, "Out of date, oh certainly not. You fit in exactly right, or you would if it were a hundred years ago or so."
"Well then," he said quietly, "I see Candy's group of young friends approaching. Time for me to depart." Unaware that her tease had gone awry, Carolyn thought nothing more about their exchange (but over the course of the day, she came to realize that she had caused him a substantial amount of unease. Of course she made that up to the Captain, but that is another story) as the approaching children called out, "Hi Mrs. Muir!" "Hi kids!" she answered. "Candy!" she called into the house, "The gang's here!"