"I suppose we can, but it's kind of embarrassing to award yourself prizes for virtue."
"I know it, but in a kind of general way you have to keep tabs on your own piggishness, because you're the only one that can."
"Did you say pig or fig?" Peggy had all of "Alice in Wonderland" on the tip of her tongue.
"I said pig, but I guess prig was what I meant, really. You're not a prig—but I am."
"Well, speaking of wishes," Peggy said, "do you know the very latest way of telling who you'll marry? You count ninety-nine niggers, twenty-seven white horses, and three red-heads, and then the next man you shake hands with, you'll marry. Let's begin and do it. I've been meaning to for a long time, but I wanted to wait until I had somebody to do it with. Those things are not so much fun alone. Kindly remove that inquisitive sand flea from my back. Oh! Ouch! Lots of people claim they don't bite." Elizabeth took the offender between thumb and forefinger.
"He's a funny looking beastie," she said. "He's got a kind of solemn, long face."
"I think he looks interrupted," Peggy said. "I guess he liked my flavour. Shall we start counting to-day?"
"There aren't many Negroes on the Cape, unless you count Portuguese."
"There are two kinds of Portuguese—black Portuguese and white Portuguese. We'll have to count the black ones. My mother once went to the Azores—that's inhabited by Portuguese, you know—she says that the high-class women all wear a kind of nun's costume, with a huge black head-dress made exactly like a pea-pod, and they are all quite light-skinned in spite of their black hair and eyes. Well, let's go in swimming."
Elizabeth swam her hundred strokes, and then stood breast high, watching Peggy's fearless performance as that young person displayed all the latest spectacular swimming feats, diving and wallowing and spouting like a young whale. The raft, which was usually rocking in at least seven feet of water, had at first filled Elizabeth with terror, but Peggy's adventurous spirit was beginning to animate her, and she followed courageously when Peggy cried, "Now, the raft," and climbed up its slippery sides with very little hesitation.