He turned to stare at me, and broke into a laugh. ‘So! _you_ are the poet amongst the passengers, eh? as Emmett’s the painter? What’s to be _my_ walk? Oh, there goes the first breakfast bell! Heaven bless us, what a delightful thing it is not to feel sea-sick!’ We continued to gabble a bit in this fashion; he then left the berth, and a little later I followed him. The large cuddy wore an aspect it had not before exhibited. The sunshine sparkled upon the skylights, and the interior was full of the blue and silver radiance of the rich and welcome autumn morning outside. The long table was all aglow with the silver and crystal furniture of the white damask, and through the glazed domes in the upper deck you could see the canvas on the mizzen swelling in a milky softness from yard to yard as the sails mounted to the height of the tender little royal. The passengers came from the deck or up from below one after another; the change in the weather had acted as a charm, and here now was the whole mob of us, one old lady excepted, with a glimpse to be had of the two ayahs sunning themselves on the quarter-deck. The skipper, looking a bit stale, as with too much of all-night work, but smart enough in the gingerbread trickery of his uniform, made a little speech of compliments to the ladies and gentlemen from the head of the table. There was a courtliness about the old fellow that gained not a little in relish from a sort of deep-sea flavour in his manner and varying expressions of face. I liked the quality of the bow with which he accompanied his answer to any lady who addressed him. I sat at the bottom of the table on the right hand of the chief-officer, and was able to command a pretty good view of the people that I was to be associated with, as I might suppose, for the next three or four, and perhaps five months. There were several girls amongst us--two Miss Joliffes, three Miss Brookes’s, Miss Hudson, and four or five more. Miss Hudson was exceedingly pretty--hair of dark gold, and a skin delicate as a lily, upon which lay a kind of golden tinge--oh, call it not freckles! though I daresay the charming effect was produced by something of that sort. Her eyes were large, moist, violet in hue, with slightly lifted eyebrows, which gave them an arch look. Mr. Sylvanus Johnson, who sat next me, after staring at her a little, muttered in my ear in a dramatic undertone: ‘Perdita has expressed that girl, sir: Violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes Or Cytherea’s breath.’ ‘If that be her mother next to her,’ said I, ‘fix your attention upon her, Mr. Johnson, and Perdita’s fancy will exhale!’