A handsome woman, tall and fashionably attired, apparently between thirty and forty years of age, square faced, dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and with curling hair, approached me with uplifted hands and eyebrows as I lay gazing calmly upon her; for my food and slumber together had strengthened and revived me wonderfully in the last few hours, and my senses were again collected. "Awake, and herself again, as I live, even if we cannot say yet truthfully 'clothed and in her right mind.'--Eh, Clayton?" with a sneering simper; "and what eyes, what teeth, to be sure! Then the dreadful redness is going away, though the skin will scale, of course; but no matter for that; all the fairer in the end. And what a special mercy that her hair is saved!--You have to thank _me_ for that, young lady. I would not let the ship's doctor touch a strand of it--not a strand. 'One does not grow a yard and a half of hair in a month, or a year, doctor,' I observed, 'and a woman might as well be dead at once, or mad, or a man, as have cropped hair during all the days of her youth.' I had a fellow-feeling, you see! I have magnificent hair myself, child, as Clayton well knows, for it is her chief trouble on earth, and I would almost as lief die as lose it." "Yes, indeed, Lady Anastasia's hair is one of her chief attractions," observed the sympathizing Clayton, behind her chair. "So Sir Harry Raymond thought, my dear"--addressing me--"when I married him, ten years ago; and so somebody else thinks just now, for I am tired of my widowhood, and intend taking on the conjugal yoke again as soon as I reach--" "New York," interpolated Mrs. Clayton, hastily and emphatically; clearing her throat slightly, by way of apology, perhaps, for her officiousness. "And you shall stand bridesmaid, my dear. Yes, I am determined on it; so never make great eyes at me. There is a little bit of romance about me that will strike out in spite of all my worldliness; and it will be so pretty to have an 'ocean-waif' for an attendant--it will read so well in the papers! I suppose, when you reach your friends, there will be no difficulty about a dress, and all that sort of thing, meet for the occasion--a very splendid one, I assure you--conducted without regard to expense; for my _fiance_ is very rich, I hear, and my own jointure was a liberal one." "You do me a great honor," I murmured, conventionally rebelling inwardly at the suggestion. "Oh, not at all!" was the gracious rejoinder. "I see at a glance, in spite of your misfortunes, that you are one of us, which is not what I say to everybody. True blood will show under all circumstances, though there is such an improvement. Did any one ever see the like before? Why, my dear, you were blistered and black when we picked you up, and afterward sienna-colored; now you are almost a beauty!" "I am better--much better, and have a great deal to be thankful for, I feel," I contented myself with murmuring.