"
After she had been in the house a fortnight, her ideas grew a little
faster; and speaking of an old sedate lady, and hoping she would do
something she wished, she startled me by saying, "If she do, she do;
and if she don't, go to hell!"
The girl was remarkably pretty, with black plaits of hair confined by
a coloured handkerchief, a round baby face, large eyes, long lashes,
small nose, and pouting lips, with white teeth, of which she was very
proud: a temperament which was all sunshine or thunder and lightning
in ten minutes. She had a nice, plump little figure, encased in a
simple, tight-fitting cotton gown, which, however, showed a stomach
of size totally disproportionate to her figure. Seeing this, I said
gently:
"O Moon, do wear stays! When you get older, you will lose your pretty
figure. You are only seventeen, and I am past thirty, and yet I have
no stomach. Do let me give you some stays."
She burst into a storm of tears and indignation at being supposed to
have a fault of person, which brought on a rumbling of the stomach.
She pointed to it, and said:
"Hush! do you hear, Lady? She cry because she is so great."
Our kawwass having picked up a little bad language on board ship from
the sailors, was in the habit of saying wicked words when angry, and
the Moon imitated him. The Moon, on being told to do something one
day by my English maid, rapped out a volley of fearful oaths, and my
maid fled to me in horror.
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