Then, very earnestly, "They hev hild all these years, them feelin's hev, and they hev been rewived this day in all their wiolence; and the beautiful curls that used to shine down all the daffodils are just as soft and as golden as ever!" Here he ventured to touch the ends of the long-admired tresses; but he did not see that they were both thin and faded, and that the parting was very, very wide. "Ay, it's the same bright head," he went on, "that's been a-shinin' all these years so far away that I never expected to put my rough hand on 't,--not, anyhow, afore I'd crossed the dark ferry, and got refined into a spirit. And now, just think! here you be, a-sailin' in my little wessel, that I'd christened 'The Rose Rollins' for your memory's sake,--a-sailin' by my side in all the freshness and bloom of your perfect beauty!"
The milliner laughed, well pleased with the compliment, and said that, when one charm wanished, another took its place sometimes; so that, if we only kept up our witality, we didn't look much the worse for all our years. "Now you, for instance, could never have been handsomer than you are to-day!" she concluded, pointing her theory with that kindly method so characteristic of women.
His face had been drawing nearer to hers all the while she spoke, so that his eyes were quite looking into hers now. "I'm broke a leetle," says he, "I know it; but when I see myself in these lovely lookin'-glasses I do look right nice, for all." And then he went on with his story.
"I was a'most forgettin' on 't," he said; "but what wonder!
"My father was a sailor; and the last time he ever went out was as one of the crew of the Dauphin, of Nantucket, Captain Griscom,--how well I remember it! though I was a little chap then,--about seven year old, I guess. The Dauphin was a whaler, you must know, and Captain Griscom as rough and hard as the sea-rocks themselves. I seen him once; and I've got a picter in my mind of his furrered, weather-beat face, and eyes that was more like the bulb of some pison plant than anything else,--so blue, and dull, and lackin' all human expression. His ear was like a dry knot,--seemed as if 't would break off if you touched it, and his nose wa' n't much better. He wa' n't a man that any child would ever go nigh,--anyhow I couldn't. My father was high-sperited,--too high-sperited for his sitooation, as'll be showed by an' by.