"I took such a wiolent fancy to the name o' your wessel," says the milliner, "and that is how I come to take passage with you. Ain't she a nice little thing, though?"
"Trim as a gal o' sixteen!" says John. "But had n't you better unlade yourself o' your merchandise, and fix to enjoy the sail some?"--and he began taking the boxes from her lap.
"O sir, you 're wery good!" says the milliner, quite blushing. And then she adjusted her skirts, and flirted them about as she adjusted them, and then she untied her bonnet-strings and knotted them up again, for nothing in the world but the pleasure of tying knots in ribbon apparently; but John Chidlaw thought he had never in his life seen such a graceful and enchanting performance. He brought his jacket directly, and offered to spread it over the board on which she was sitting.
"Oh, you 're wery good, wery good, I am sure, sir,--but I 'm a-givin' you too much trouble!"--and, saying so, she partly rose and allowed the seat to be cushioned as proposed. The wind caught the bright ribbons, and fluttered them in the man's face as he was thus employed.
"Oh!" says the milliner, with a little start; and then she says, "The nasty winds have such a wulgar way of catchin' up a body's things"; and she pulls back the innocent strings and holds them against her bosom by main force.
"Pray, miss, don't haul 'em round that way on my account; they did n't hurt me none! Why, I thought 't was a butterfly at fust, and then I thought 't was a hummin'-bird, and them was allers pleasin' things to me, both on 'em."
The woman was flattered. In the first place she was not young,--not much younger than he, in fact,--and he had addressed her as "miss"; and in the next place his comparing her ribbons to butterflies and humming-birds seemed the same as a personal compliment.
"O Captain!" she says, coloring up, "did you think so, werily?"--and then she changes the subject, and talks about the appearance of the clouds, and the prospect of rain. "I suppose you old sailors can tell, purty much," she says, "whether it 's a-goin' to rain, or whether the clouds will ewaporate into mist; and I should really walue your judgment, for if my things should git wet, you see, it would cost me a wery considerable sum!"