268 ON THE FEONTIEE. 



draperies, and that the Creator made the human figure 

 unfit to be seen, the remainder of this chapter is not in- 

 tended for his reading. Cha-cha was about twenty-two 

 years of age, five feet six inches high, and possibly eleven 

 stone in weight. But it was difficult to estimate what she 

 did weigh ; since, though light in the waist, and quite small 

 in the joints, her limbs were very full and well rounded. 

 She had elegantly-sloped shoulders, and a wide, full, deep 

 well-muscled chest a chest like an athlete's from which 

 sprung, with a slight upward and outward tendency, the 

 " two young roes that are twins, which feed amongst the 

 lilies." As she stood on the edge of the river's bank some 

 fifteen feet above the water, taking a deep breath pre- 

 paratory to a header, with her long black hair hanging 

 down her back nearly to the ground, with a look of free 

 fearlessness on her face, with the bright sun shining on 

 her skin and making it look like copper-coloured satin 

 bringing a warm roseate underglow through its clear 

 texture, and revealing its soft shadow-tints of bronze 

 she seemed an impersonation of combined strength, grace, 

 and beauty. She embodied a full, complete, and most 

 convincing discourse on the divinity of the human form. 

 Surely, if there are " sermons in stones," she was one in 

 flesh and blood. She was at once a realisation of grace 

 in form and beauty in colour, beyond anything I have seen 

 in marble or on canvas, or, before then, was able to have 

 imagined. 





