But at dinner he had plainly forgot any offence, and I had more cause
than ever to be puzzled over his odd mixture of confidence and aloofness.
He talked gayly on a score of subjects,--on dress, of which he was never
tired, and described ports in the Indies and South America, in a fashion
that betrayed prodigious powers of acute observation; nor did he lack for
wit when he spoke of the rich planters who had wined him, and had me much
in laughter. We fell into a merry mood, in Booth, jingling the glasses
in many toasts, for he had a list of healths to make me gasp, near as
long as the brigantine's articles,--Inez in Havana and Maraquita in
Cartagena, and Clotilde, the Creole, of Martinico, each had her separate
charm. Then there was Bess, in Kingston, the relict of a customs
official, Captain Paul relating with ingenuous gusto a midnight brush
with a lieutenant of his Majesty, in which the fair widow figured, and
showed her preference, too. But his adoration for the ladies of the more
northern colonies, he would have me to understand, was unbounded. For
example, Miss Arabella Pope of Norfolk, in Virginia,--and did I know her?
No, I had not that pleasure, though I assured him the Popes of Virginia
were famed. Miss Pope danced divinely as any sylph, and the very memory
of her tripping at the Norfolk Assembly roused the captain to such a
pitch of enthusiasm as I had never seen in him. Marvellous to say, his
own words failed him, and he had recourse to the poets:

"Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But, oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight."