It had got so limp
and ragged that she couldn't see out of her eyes for it. It was so
dirty, that whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out
of the river, or an old porter's-knot from England, I don't think any new
spectator could have said. Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion
that it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as
to propriety. And she really did carry herself over the other ladies who
had no nightcaps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they
could, in a superior manner that was perfectly amazing.
I don't know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed nightcap, on a
log of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft. She would have
rather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the picture-books that used
to be in the shop windows in my boyhood, except for her stateliness. But,
Lord bless my heart, the dignity with which she sat and moped, with her
head in that bundle of tatters, was like nothing else in the world! She
was not on speaking terms with more than three of the ladies. Some of
them had, what she called, "taken precedence" of her--in getting into, or
out of, that miserable little shelter!--and others had not called to pay
their respects, or something of that kind.
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