Apart from this usage, which they practise in common with many thousand
most estimable citizens, the Vermont gentleman, and the Kentucky
whiskered lady--or did I say the reverse?--whichever you like my dear
sir--were quite quiet, modest, unassuming people. She sat working with
her needle, if I remember right. He, I suppose, slept in the great
cabin, which was seventy feet long at the least, nor, I am bound to say,
did I hear in the night any snores or roars, such as you would fancy
ought to accompany the sleep of ogres. Nay, this giant had quite a small
appetite, (unless, to be sure, he went forward and ate a sheep or two in
private with his horrid knife--oh, the dreadful thought!--but IN PUBLIC,
I say, he had quite a delicate appetite,) and was also a tea-totaler.
I don't remember to have heard the lady's voice, though I might, not
unnaturally, have been curious to hear it. Was her voice a deep, rich,
magnificent bass; or was it soft, fluty, and mild? I shall never know
now. Even if she comes to this country, I shall never go and see her. I
HAVE seen her, and for nothing.
You would have fancied that, as after all we were only some half-dozen
on board, she might have dispensed with her red handkerchief, and
talked, and eaten her dinner in comfort: but in covering her chin there
was a kind of modesty.
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