Oh, wuz it not a fair seen—a fair seen!
I stood perfectly lost and by the side of myself. The grandeur and beauty of the seen wuz so overwhelmin’ that, entirely onbeknown to myself, my bunnet had fell backward on my neck, and I stood bareheaded, jest as men do before a great heroine or hero. (I spoze it is jest as proper to call the Righi a female as a male; anyway, she stood up so dretful calm and serene it didn’t seem as if a male could hold that poster and calmness so early in the mornin’. You know, males are dretful restless and oneasy early in the mornin’. The work of the day kinder takes the tuck out of ’em, and they grow more sedater.)
But, anyway, I stood there bareheaded, jest as anybody ort to before the great Presence. The on-matchable grandeur of the seen—the sun a-beatin’ down onnoticed on my gray “crown of glory,” when I hearn a voice clost beside me, and the words kinder brung me back, for I had been quite a distance away from the real world of trouble and tourists and things.
The voice said—“For the land’s sake! I wouldn’t run the risk you do of tanning myself all up, for anything in the world.”
I wuz brung clear down, and I looked round, and I see standin’ clost to me a female, jedgin’ from her matronly form and her gray hair, that kinder meandered down on the neck of her ulster behind, of about my own age, or a little older, mebby. Yes, she wuz probble a number of years older, and though our hefts wuz jest about alike, she hadn’t got nigh so noble a figger.
She had two veils over her face besides a lace one—two braize veils, a green and a brown one, and carried a big umbrell, histed up to its full height, the umbrell a-lookin’ firm and decided, as if it calculated to shet off all the grandeur the braize veils didn’t make out to.
Sez she, as I slowly turned round and brung my spectacles to bear on her with a gray flame of wonder and surprise a-shinin’ through each one on ’em—
Sez she, “I wouldn’t tan my nose as you’re tanning yours for worlds like this.”
I sez mekanically, “Why, why not tan your nose?”
“Why, it would detract so from my looks; a nose adds so much to the looks of a human face,” sez she.