een to be worn where any men
were to come; but among ourselves it was well enough, especially for hot
weather; the colour was green, figured, and the stuff a French damask,
very rich.

This gown or vest put the girl's tongue a running again, and her sister,
as she called her, prompted it; for as they both admired my vest, and
were taken up much about the beauty of the dress, the charming damask,
the noble trimming, and the like, my girl puts in a word to the sister
(captain's wife), "This is just such a thing as I told you," says she,
"the lady danced in." "What," says the captain's wife, "the Lady Roxana
that you told me of? Oh! that's a charming story," says she, "tell it my
lady." I could not avoid saying so too, though from my soul I wished her
in heaven for but naming it; nay, I won't say but if she had been
carried t'other way it had been much as one to me, if I could but have
been rid of her, and her story too, for when she came to describe the
Turkish dress, it was impossible but the Quaker, who was a sharp,
penetrating creature, should receive the impression in a more dangerous
manner than the girl, only that indeed she was not so dangerous a
person; for if she had known it all, I could more freely have trusted
her than I could the girl, by a great deal, nay, I should have been
perfectly easy in her.

However, as I have said, her talk made me dreadfully uneasy, and the
more when the captain's wife mentioned but the name of Roxana. What my
face might do towards betraying me I knew not, because I could not see
myself, but my heart beat as if it would have jumped out at my mouth,
and my passion was so great, that, for want of vent, I thought I should
have burst. In a word, I was in a kind of a silent rage, for the force I
was under of restraining my passion was such as I never felt the like
of. I had no vent, nobody to open myself to, or to make a complaint to,
for my relief; I durst not leave the room by any means, for then she
would have told all the story in my absence, and I should have been
perpetually uneasy to know what she had said, or had not said; so that,
in a word, I was obliged to sit and hear her tell all the story of
Roxana, that is to say, of myself, and not know at the same time whether
she was in earnest or in jest, whether she knew me or no; or, in short,
whether I was to be exposed, or not exposed.

She began only in general with telling where she lived, what a place she
had of it, how galla