“‘What! When you “come ashore” yourself?’
“‘No fear!’ she answered. ‘Last winter when the big ship went to bits out there.’
“‘Oh, I see! Then it was a portion of a wreck?’
“‘Yes, it come ashore, and, look ye now, this jacket come ashore too. On a sailor chap.’
“‘And the sailor chap made you a present of it, I suppose?’
“‘No fear!’ she repeated, with her sharp shake of the head. ‘How could he give it me, when he was drownded and come ashore? William Jones gave it to me, and I altered it my own self, look ye now, to make it fit.’
“She was certainly an extraordinary young person, and wore her mysterious finery with a coolness I thought remarkable, it being quite clear, from her explanation, that all was fish that came to her net, or, in other words, that dead men’s clothes were as acceptable to her unprejudiced taste as any others. However, the time was hastening on, and I had my promise to keep. So I got my crayon materials, and made Matt sit down before me on a stool, first insisting, however, that she should divest herself of her head-gear, which was an abomination, but which she discarded with extreme reluctance. Directly I began, she became rigid, and fixed herself, so to speak, as people do when being photographed—her eyes glaring on vacancy, her whole face lost in self-satisfied vacuity.
“‘You needn’t keep like that,’ I cried, ‘I want your face to have some expression. Move your head about as much as you like, laugh and talk—it will be all the better.’
“‘Last time I was took,’ she replied, ‘the chap said I mustn’t move.’
“‘Ah! I suppose he was a travelling photographer.’