to his seat he threw himself down. "Now, Jemima, put up my legs on that chair. I can't stir them myself. I couldn't raise them an inch if you was to promise me a kiss for my pains. There, thank ye; now sit down and be jolly."
"Sir," said Mehalah, "you remember my mother. Mistress Sharland?"
"What! Liddy Vince, pretty cousin Liddy! I should think I did remember her. Why, it is only the other day that she married."
"I am her daughter, and my age is nineteen."
"I haven't seen her for—well, never mind how many years. Years don't tell on a man as they do on a woman; they mellow him, but wither her. So you are her daughter, are you? Stand round there by my feet where I can see you."
He drew his head down among his clothes and peered at her from between his tall white collars. "You are an uncommon fine girl," he said, when his observation was completed, "but not a bit like Liddy. You are more like her mother—she was the deuce of a splendid woman, such eyes, such hair—but she was a" he hesitated, his courtesy forbade his saying what rose to the tongue.
"A gipsy;" Mehalah supplied the words.
"Well, she was, but she couldn't help it, you know. But that is not what I was about to say. I intended to observe that she was a—little before my time. She was old when I knew her, but I've heard what a beauty she was, and her eyes always remained large and noble, and her hair luxuriant. But women don't improve with age as does good port, and as do men. Well, now, tell me your name."
"Mehalah."
"A regular Essex marshland name. I hope I shall remember it. But I have to carry so many names of nice-looking girls in my head, and of ships I have built, that they run one another down, and I cannot be sure to recall them. My memory is not going. Don't suppose that. Why, bless your dear heart, I can remember everything your mother and I said to one another when we were sweet upon each other. That don't look like a failing
