At the ferry-room, this morning, was a small, thin, anxious-looking
woman, with a bundle, seeming in rather poor circumstances, but decently
dressed, and eying other women, I thought, with an expression of slight
ill-will and distrust; also, an elderly, stout, gray-haired woman, of
respectable aspect, and two young lady-like persons, quite pretty, one of
whom was reading a shilling volume of James's "Arabella Stuart." They
talked to one another with that up-and-down intonation which English
ladies practise, and which strikes an unaccustomed ear as rather
affected, especially in women of size and mass. It is very different
from an American lady's mode of talking: there is the difference between
color and no color; the tone variegates it. One of these young ladies
spoke to me, making some remark about the weather,--the first instance I
have met with of a gentlewoman's speaking to an unintroduced gentleman.
Besides these, a middle-aged man of the lower class, and also a
gentleman's out-door servant, clad in a drab great-coat, corduroy
breeches, and drab cloth gaiters buttoned from the knee to the ankle. He
complained to the other man of the cold weather; said that a glass of
whiskey, every half-hour, would keep a man comfortable; and, accidentally
hitting his coarse foot against one of the young lady's feet, said, "Beg
pardon, ma'am,"--which she acknowledged with a slight movement of the
head. Somehow or other, different classes seem to encounter one another
in an easier manner than with us; the shock is less palpable.
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