I was even so happy as to be the subject of their
conversation; for Narcissa, having observed me, said to her aunt,
"I see your new footman is come." Then addressing herself to me,
asked, with ineffable complacency, if I was the person who had been
so cruelly used by robbers? When I had satisfied her in this; she
expressed a desire of knowing the other particulars of my fortune,
both before and since my being shipwrecked: hereupon (as Mrs. Sagely
had counselled me) I told her that I had been bound apprentice
to the master of a ship, contrary to my inclination, which ship
had foundered at sea; that I and four more, who chanced to be on
deck when she went down, made shift to swim to the shore, when my
companions, after having overpowered me, stripped me to the shirt,
and left me, as they imagined, dead of the wounds I received in my
own defence. Then I related the circumstances of being found in a
barn, with the inhuman treatment I met with from the country people
and parson; the description of which, I perceived, drew tears from
the charming creature's eyes. When I had finished my recital, my
mistress, said, "Ma foi! le garcon est bien fait!" To which opinion
Narcissa assented, with a compliment to my understanding, in the
same language, that flattered my vanity extremely.
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