Miss Maria desisted a moment from her work; then she answered, with
a gruff shortness peculiar to her, "Well, then, she can go to the
cook, I suppose. It wouldn't matter which she went to, I presume."

Deacon Latham looked up with the air of confessing to sin before the
whole congregation. "The cook's a man,--a black man," he said.

Miss Maria dropped a handful of pods into the pan, and sent a handful
of peas rattling across the table on to the floor. "Well, who in
Time"--the expression was strong, but she used it without hesitation,
and was never known to repent it "_will_ she go to, then?"

"I declare for't," said her father, "I don't know. I d'know as I
ever thought it out fairly before; but just now when I was pickin'
the pease for you, my mind got to dwellin' on Lyddy, and then it come
to me all at once: there she was, the only _one_ among a whole
shipful, and I--I didn't know but what she might think it rather of
a strange position for her."

"_Oh_!" exclaimed Miss Maria, petulantly. "I guess Lyddy'd know
how to conduct herself wherever she was; she's a born lady, if ever
there was one. But what I think is--" Miss Maria paused, and did not
say what she thought; but it was evidently not the social aspect of
the matter which was uppermost in her mind. In fact, she had never
been at all afraid of men, whom she regarded as a more inefficient
and feebler-minded kind of women.

"The only thing't makes me feel easier is what the captain said
about the young men," said Deacon Latham.