position, looking about her to see that no gentry were near before she
delivered her message, which had reference to the state of the sheets,
and was of the utmost gravity.

"How ever we're to get through this voyage, Miss Rachel, I really can't
tell," she began with a shake of her head. "There's only just sheets
enough to go round, and the master's has a rotten place you could
put your fingers through. And the counterpanes. Did you notice the
counterpanes? I thought to myself a poor person would have been ashamed
of them. The one I gave Mr. Pepper was hardly fit to cover a dog. . . .
No, Miss Rachel, they could _not_ be mended; they're only fit for dust
sheets. Why, if one sewed one's finger to the bone, one would have one's
work undone the next time they went to the laundry."

Her voice in its indignation wavered as if tears were near.

There was nothing for it but to descend and inspect a large pile of
linen heaped upon a table. Mrs. Chailey handled the sheets as if she
knew each by name, character, and constitution. Some had yellow stains,
others had places where the threads made long ladders; but to the
ordinary eye they looked much as sheets usually do look, very chill,
white, cold, and irreproachably clean.

Suddenly Mrs. Chailey, turning from the subject of sheets, dismissing
them entirely, clenched her fists on the top of them, and proclaimed,
"And you couldn't ask a living creature to sit where I sit!"

Mrs. Chailey was expected to sit in a cabin which was large enough,
but too near the boilers, so that after five minutes she could hear her
heart "go," she complained, putting her hand above it, which was a state