On one's forty-fifth birthday one has acquired or should have acquired a certain measure of philosophical resignation.
Other customers or lookers came and went.

Maud Hunniwell, Captain Sam's daughter, dropped in on her way to the post office.

The captain was a widower and Maud was his only child.

She was, therefore, more than the apple of his eye, she was a whole orchard of apples.

She was eighteen, pretty and vivacious, and her father made a thorough job of spoiling her.