And oh, the luxury of it! Nobody knows what the delights of clean linen
really mean till he or she has had to dispense with it under
circumstances of privation; nor have they the slightest idea of what a
difference to one's well-being and comfort is made by the possession or
non-possession of an article so common as a comb. Whilst Augusta was
still combing out her hair with sighs of delight, Mrs. Thomas knocked at
the door and was admitted.
"My! Miss; what beautiful hair you have, now that it is combed out!" she
said in admiration; "why, whatever is that upon your shoulders?"
Then Augusta had to tell the tale of the tattooing, which by-the-way, it
struck her, it was wise to do so, seeing that she thus secured a witness
to the fact, that she was already tattooed on leaving Kerguelen Land,
and that the operation had been of such recent infliction that the flesh
was still inflamed with it. This was the more necessary as the tattooing
was undated.
Mrs. Thomas listened to the story with her mouth open, lost between
admiration of Augusta's courage, and regret that her shoulders should
have been ruined in that fashion.
"Well, the least that he" (alluding to Eustace) "can do is to marry you
after you have spoilt yourself in that fashion for his benefit," said the
practical Mrs.
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