No one could say of Mehetabel that she had been frivolous and forward. Reserved, even in a tavern: always able to maintain her dignity; respecting herself, she had enforced respect from others. That she was hard-working, shrewd, thrifty, none who visited the Ship could fail to know.
Many a lad had attempted to win her favor, and all had been repulsed. She could keep forward suitors at a distance without wounding their self-esteem, without making them bear her a grudge. She was tall, well-built and firmly knit. There was in her evidence of physical as well as of moral strength.
Though young, Mehetabel seemed older than her years, so fully developed was her frame, so swelling her bosom, so set were her features.
Usually the girl wore a high color, but of late this had faded out of her face, which had been left of an ashen hue. Her pallor, however, only gave greater effect to the lustre and profusion of her dark hair and to the size and to the velvet depth and softness of her hazel eyes.
The girl had finely-moulded eyebrows, which, when she frowned through anger, or contracted them through care, met in one band, and gave a lowering expression to her massive brow.
An urchin in the rear nudged a ploughboy, and said in a low tone,
"Jim! The old harnet out o' the 'ollow tree be in luck to-day.
Wot'll he do with her, now he's ketched a butterfly?"
"Wot be he like to do?" retorted the bumpkin. "A proper spiteful twoad such as he—why, he'll rumple all the color and booty out o' her wings, and sting her till her blood runs pison."
Then from the tower pealed the bells.
Jonas pressed the arm of Mehetabel, and leering into her face, said: "Come, say a word o' thanks. Better late than never. At the last, through me, you've gotten a surname."