re was Bess, in Kingston, the relict
of a customs official, Captain Paul relating with ingenuous gusto a
midnight brush with a lieutenant of his Majesty, in which the fair
widow figured, and showed her preference, too. But his adoration for the
ladies of the more northern colonies, he would have me to understand,
was unbounded. For example, Miss Arabella Pope of Norfolk, in
Virginia,--and did I know her? No, I had not that pleasure, though I
assured him the Popes of Virginia were famed. Miss Pope danced divinely
as any sylph, and the very memory of her tripping at the Norfolk
Assembly roused the captain to such a pitch of enthusiasm as I had never
seen in him. Marvellous to say, his own words failed him, and he had
recourse to the poets:

"Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But, oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight."

The lines, he told me, were Sir John Suckling's; and he gave them
standing, in excellent voice and elegant gesture.

He was in particular partial to the poets, could quote at will from Gay
and Thomson and Goldsmith and Gray, and even from Shakespeare, much
to my own astonishment and humiliation. Saving only Dr. Courtenay
of Annapolis I had never met his equal for versatility of speech and
command of fine language; and, having heard that he had been at sea
since the age of twelve, I made bold to ask him at what school he had
got his knowledge.

"At none, Richard," he answered with pride, "saving the rudiments at the
Parish School at Kirkbean. Why, sir, I hold it to be within every
man's province to make himself what he will, and I early recognized in
Learning the only guide for such as me. I may say that I married her for
the furtherance of my fortunes, and have come to love her for her own
sake. Many and many the 'tween-watch have I passed in a coil of rope in
the tops, a volume of the classics in my hand. And 'my happiest days,
when not at sea, have been spent in my brother William's little library.
He hath a modest estate near Fredericksburg, in Virginia, and none holds
higher than he the worth of an education. Ah, Richard," he added, with
a certain sadness, "I fear you little know the value of that which hath
been so lavishly bestowed upon you. There is no creation in the world to
equal your fine gentleman!"

It struck me indeed as strang