It gave Cissie a certain
tang of triumph to smile at the swathed ones and to think that she knew
better than that.
At night a negro string-band played for the white excursionists to
dance, and Cissie would sit, with glowing eyes, clenching Peter's hand,
every fiber of her asway to the music, and it seemed as if her heart
would go mad. All these inhibitions, all this spreading before her of
forbidden joys, did not daunt her delight. She reveled in them by
propinquity.
The chambermaid was a Mrs. Antolia Higgman, a strong, full-bodied
_cafe-au-lait_ negress. She was a very sensible woman, and during
her work on the boat she had picked up a Northern accent and a number of
little mannerisms from the Chicago and St. Louis excursionists, who made
ten-day round trips from Dubuque to Florence, Alabama, and return. When
Mrs. Higgman was not running errands for the women passengers, she was
working at her perpetual laundering.
At first Peter was a little uneasy as to how Mrs. Higgman would treat
Cissie, but she turned out a good-hearted woman, and did everything she
could to make the young wife comfortable.
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