Chapter 25 - Page 2

gives light
to Pimminee, and Mardi at large."

She replied, that if that were the case, she had never beheld it; for
such was the construction of her farthingale, that her head could not
be thrown back, without impairing its set. Wherefore, she had always
abstained from astronomical investigations.

Hereupon, rude Mohi laughed out. And that lucky laugh happily relieved
Taji from all further necessity of entertaining the Vowels. For at so
vulgar, and in Pimminee, so unwonted a sound, as a genuine laugh, the
three startled nymphs fainted away in a row, their round farthingales
falling over upon each other, like a file of empty tierces. But they
presently revived.

Meanwhile, without stirring from their mats, the polite young bucks in
the aigulettes did nothing but hold semi-transparent leaves to their
eyes, by the stems; which leaves they directed downward, toward the
disordered hems of the farthingales; in wait, perhaps, for the
revelation of an ankle, and its accompaniments. What the precise use
of these leaves could have been, it would be hard to say, especially
as the observers invariably peeped over and under them.

The calamity of the Vowels was soon followed by the breaking up of the
party; when, evening coming on, and feeling much wearied with the
labor of seeing company in Pimminee, we retired to our mats; there
finding that repose which ever awaits the fatigued.