The Wing-and-Wing

rs talk at will; as for himself, it suited his habits, and possibly his doubts, to maintain a grave and portentous silence.

We have spoken of females; as a matter of course, an event like this, in a town of some three or four thousand souls, would be likely to draw a due proportion of the gentler sex to the heights. Most of them contrived to get as near as possible to the aged seaman, in order to obtain the first intelligence, that it might be the sooner circulated; but it would seem that among the younger of these there was also a sort of oracle of their own, about whose person gathered a dozen of the prettiest girls; either anxious to hear what Ghita might have to say in the premises, or, perhaps, influenced by the pride and modesty of their sex and condition, which taught them to maintain a little more reserve than was necessary to the less refined portion of their companions. In speaking of condition, however, the words must be understood with an exceedingly limited meaning. Porto Ferrajo had but t