Well, there I sat, with the sun pouring down on me, while E. E. read the illustrated papers, and that child made herself generally numerous among the passengers. After awhile I got up to look over the side of the vessel, when that horrid wretch snatched up my seat and carried it off, looking back at me and laughing. I said nothing--what was the use?--but leaned against the cabin-door, holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman, who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on her lap. She had found an empty stool, and asked me to take it. I sat down while she smiled blandly upon me. "Never mind that fellow," says she. "Some men are born animals of one kind or another, so let them go." Her words were kind--her manner motherly. I liked the woman. She is not elegant, I thought, but who could be with all that breadth of chest and brevity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was. "Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood on fire. "Now I would give anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?" She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of course," thought I, "she means that." "Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet." She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water. Perhaps-- "Take one," says she, handing over a cracker. I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation, looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me, whispered-- "That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something nice." "Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice--peaches, of course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of them--delicious! The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs. Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new acquaintance was no common person--a little stout, certainly, but so is the Queen of England. I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin--on and on--back of some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket on a marble table, and proceeded to open it. I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice, as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.