[Frontier Stories by Bret Harte]@TWC D-Link book
Frontier Stories

CHAPTER III
10/12

When she returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large piece of yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting." These she deposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood to assure herself that she was alone.

Satisfied that no intruding foot had invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began to undress.

A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to the circumjacent trees.

It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs, who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently moving band of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricably mingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiled alike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd.

Within these hallowed precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling water, and at times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlight trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline of a childish bosom.
When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of the wood, she was completely transformed.
It was the figure that had appeared to the Postmaster; the slight, erect, graceful form of a young woman modishly attired.


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