This Postscript Master Barnabas must needs read three times over,
and then, quick and furtive, press the letter to his lips ere he
thrust it into his bosom, and opened and read the Captain's:
The Gables,
Hawkhurst.
Written in the Round-house,
June 29, 18--.
MY DEAR BEVERLEIGH,--How is Fashion and the
Modish World? as trivial as usual, I'll warrant me. The
latest sensation, I believe, is Cossack Trousers,--have
you tried 'em yet? But to come to my mutton, as the
Mounseers say.
The Duchess of Camberhurst, having honored my
house with her presence--and consequently set it in an
uproar, I am constantly running foul of her, though
more often she is falling aboard of me. To put it plainly,
what with cross-currents, head-seas, and shifting winds
that come down suddenly and blow great guns from every
point of the compass, I am continually finding myself
taken all a-back, as it were, and since it is quite
impossible to bring to and ride it out, am consequently
forced to go about and run for it, and continually pooped,
even then,--for a woman's tongue is, I'm sure, worse
than any following sea.
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