“And so plain too,” murmured Mrs. Major F.
“You cannot deny that her features are good, ladies,” again interposed Miss Leigh; “but creoles seldom possess the fine red and white of our British belles.”
“At night,” suggested Miss Mann, “her colour is remarkably good: it is not subject to any variation like ours. The bleak sea air does not dim the roses on her cheeks; while these young ladies look as blue and as cold as figures carved out of stone. Of course, Miss Leigh will think me very uncharitable in saying that Mrs. D. paints; but I know she does. She left her dressing-case open yesterday, and her little boy was dabbling his fingers in her French carmine and pearl white, and a fine mess he made of his mamma’s beautiful complexion. Bless me!” exclaimed the old maid, suddenly lowering her voice to a whisper, “if there is not her black imp sitting under the table; he will be sure to tell her all that we have said about her! What a nuisance he is! I do not think it is proper for him, a great boy of sixteen, to be admitted into the ladies’ cabin.”
“Pshaw!” said Mrs. Major F.; “nobody cares for him—a black.”
“But, my dear Mrs. F., though he is a black, the boy has eyes and ears, like the rest of his sex, and my sense of female propriety is shocked by his presence. But, who are these people?”—glancing at Flora and her maid—“and why is that woman admitted into the ladies’ cabin?—servants have no business here.”
“She is the nurse; that alters the case,” said Miss Leigh. “The plea of being the children’s attendant brought Master Hector into the cabin.”
“The boy is black, and has, on that score, as Mrs. Major F. says, neither rank nor sex,” continued the waspish Miss Mann, contradicting the objections she had made to Hector’s company only a few minutes before. “I will not submit to this insult, nor occupy the same apartment with a servant.”
“My dear Madam, you strangely forget yourself,” said Miss Leigh. “This lady has a very young infant, and cannot do without the aid of her nurse. A decent, tidy young woman is not quite such a nuisance as the noisy black boy that Mrs. Dalton has entailed upon us.”
“But, then she is a woman of fashion,” whispered Miss Mann; “and we know nothing about these people, and if I were to judge by the young person’s dress—”
“A very poor criterion,” interrupted Miss Leigh; “I draw my inferences from a higher source.” And turning to Flora, she inquired, in a kind, friendly tone, “if she were going all the way to Edinburgh, the age of the baby, and how both were affected by the sea.”