"You see, Jack, after being used to see nothing but Point women, all so
slack in stays and their rigging out of order, to fall aboard of a craft
like your mother, so trim and neat, ropes all taut, stays well set up,
white hammock-cloths spread every day in the week, and when under way,
with a shawl streaming out like a silk ensign, and such a rakish gaff
topsail bonnet, with pink pennants; why, it was for all the world as if
I was keeping company with a tight little frigate after rolling down
channel with a fleet of colliers; but, howsomever, fine feathers don't
make fine birds, and handsome is as handsome does."

My father's marriage was, however, precipitated by circumstances. One
afternoon, after he had been accepted, he had taken his quid out of his
cheek, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and was in the act of
giving and receiving a chaste salute, when Lady Hercules happened to
come down into the kitchen--a most rare occurrence, and wholly
unexpected from a lady of her refined and delicate ideas. She caught my
father and mother in the very act; and (as my father expressed it) with
an exclamation of horror, "She 'bout ship, and sculled upstairs like
winkin'." A loud peal of the bell summoned up my mother, leaving my
father in a state of no pleasant suspense, for he was calculating how
far Sir Hercules could bring in "kissing a lady's ladies' maid" under
the article of war as "contempt of superiors," and, if so, how many
dozen kisses his back might receive from the cat in return. While he was
absorbed in this pleasing speculation, Lady Hercules was pouring out
anathemas against my mother's want of delicacy and decency, informing
her that it was impossible she could submit the decoration of her person
to one who has so contaminated herself with a tobacco-chewing
seaman--who was all pigtail within and without; for, as the Scripture
says, "Who can touch pitch without being defiled?"