Ghita's companions, then,
were daughters of shopkeepers, and persons of that class who, having
been taught to read, and occasionally going to Leghorn, besides being
admitted by the deputy to the presence of his housekeeper, had got to
regard themselves as a little elevated above the more vulgar curiosity
of the less cultivated girls of the port. Ghita herself, however, owed
her ascendency to her qualities, rather than to the adventitious
advantage of being a grocer's or an innkeeper's daughter, her origin
being unknown to most of those around her, as indeed was her family
name. She had been landed six weeks before, and left by one who passed
for her father, at the inn of Christoforo Dovi, as a boarder, and had
acquired all her influence, as so many reach notoriety in our own simple
society, by the distinction of having travelled; aided, somewhat, by her
strong sense, great decision of character, perfect modesty and propriety
of deportment, with a form which was singularly graceful and feminine,
and a face that, while it could scarcely be called beautiful, was in the
highest degree winning and attractive. No one thought of asking her
family name; and she never appeared to deem it necessary to mention it.
Ghita was sufficient; it was familiar to every one; and, although there
were two or three others of the same appellation in Porto Ferrajo, this,
by common consent, got to be _the_ Ghita, within a week after she
had landed.
Ghita, it was known, had travelled, for she had publicly reached Elba in
a felucca, coming, as was said, from the Neapolitan states.
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