The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet by James Fenimore Cooper
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page 16 of 572 (02%)
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positive opinion."
As this request was reasonable, no objection was raised. The podestà turned aside, and observing Ghita, who had visited his niece, and of whose intelligence he entertained a favorable opinion, he drew nearer to the girl, determined to lose a moment in dignified trifling. "Honest 'Maso, poor fellow, is sadly puzzled," he observed, smiling benevolently, as if in pity for the pilot's embarrassment; "he wishes to persuade us that the strange craft yonder is a lugger, though he cannot himself say to what country she belongs!" "It is a lugger, Signore," returned the girl, drawing a long breath, as if relieved by hearing the sound of her own voice. "How! dost thou pretend to be so skilled in vessels as to distinguish these particulars at the distance of a league?" "I do not think it a league, Signore--not more than half a league; and the distance lessens fast, though the wind is so light. As for knowing a lugger from a felucca, it is as easy as to know a house from a church, or one of the reverend padri, in the streets, from a mariner." "Aye, so I would have told 'Maso on the spot, had the obstinate old fellow been inclined to hear me. The distance is just about what you say; and nothing is easier than to see that the stranger is a lugger. As to the nation--" "That may not be so easily told, Signore, unless the vessel show us her nag." |
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