And though ours, she says, may not be so extensive, nor so grand in its outlines, nor so calm and soft in its perspective, there is a more aristocratic air about it.  Smaller bodies are always more select and respectable.  The captain, to whom she has put an hundred and one questions which he answers in monosyllables, is not, she thinks, so much of a gentleman as he might have been had he been educated in Charleston.  He makes no distinction in favor of people of rank.

Lady Swiggs wears that same faded silk dress; her black crape bonnet, with two saucy red artificial flowers tucked in at the side, sits so jauntily; that dash of brown hair is smoothed so exactly over her yellow, shrivelled forehead; her lower jaw oscillates with increased motion; and her sharp, gray eyes, as before, peer anxiously through her great-eyed spectacles.  And, generous reader, that you may not mistake her, she has brought her inseparable Milton, which she holds firmly grasped in her right hand.  “You have had a tedious time of it, Madam,” says a corpulent lady, who is extensively dressed and jewelled, and accosts her with a familiar air.  Lady Swiggs says not so tedious as it might have been, and gives her head two or three very fashionable twitches.

“Your name, if you please?”

“The Princess Grouski.  My husband, the Prince Grouski,” replies the corpulent lady, turning and introducing a fair-haired gentleman, tall and straight of person, somewhat military in his movements, and extremely fond of fingering his long, Saxon moustache.  Lady Swiggs, on the announcement of a princess, rises suddenly to her feet, and commences an unlimited number of courtesies.  She is, indeed, most happy to meet, and have the honor of being fellow-voyager with their Royal Highnesses-will remember it as being one of the happiest events of her life,—­and begs to assure them of her high esteem.  The corpulent lady gives her a delicate card, on which is described the crown of Poland, and beneath, in exact letters, “The Prince and Princess Grouski.”  The Prince affects not to understand English, which Lady Swiggs regrets exceedingly, inasmuch as it deprives her of an interesting conversation with a person of royal blood.  The card she places carefully between the leaves of her Milton, having first contemplated it with an air of exultation.  Again begging to thank the Prince and Princess for this mark of their distinguished consideration, Lady Swiggs inquires if they ever met or heard of Sir Sunderland Swiggs.  The rotund lady, for herself and the prince, replies in the negative.  “He was,” she pursues, with a sigh of disappointment, “he was very distinguished, in his day.  Yes, and I am his lineal descendant.  Your highnesses visited Charleston, of course?”

“O dear,” replies the rotund lady, somewhat laconically, “the happiest days of my life were spent among the chivalry of South Carolina.  Indeed, Madam, I have received the attention and honors of the very first families in that State.”