A body it was, however, and no skeleton, though as nearly one as body could well be.

It lay on its side, and was very cold--not cold like a stone, but cold like that which was once alive, and is alive no more.

The closer I looked at it, the oftener I touched it, the less it seemed possible it should be other than dead.

For one bewildered moment, I fancied it one of the wild dancers, a ghostly Cinderella, perhaps, that had lost her way home, and perished in the strange night of an out-of-door world! It was quite naked, and so worn that, even in the shadow, I could, peering close, have counted without touching them, every rib in its side.

All its bones, indeed, were as visible as if tight-covered with only a thin elastic leather.