CHAPTER IX. 



The Milkmaid. 



CHE stood before me in all the freshness of her clean, white print 

 ^ dress the very picture of superb health and engaging inno- 

 cence. As sweet and as happy as the summer morning itself looked 

 she : her face was beautiful and glowed with a rich golden brown ; 

 her eyes were large, dark and lustrous ; a sun-bonnet was set 

 daintily upon her abundant silken tresses. Her arms, bare to the 

 elbows, were as smooth and as deeply tinted as her face : they shone 

 with that ripe, rich colour which distinguishes a skin that has been 

 exposed to the fierce light of the summer sun. And in her small, 

 shapely hands she held a three-legged wooden stool and a burnished 

 milk-pail. 



She stood before me like some bucolic goddess a very rival of 

 Cytherea herself roaming through her domains of exquisite green 

 fields and shady woodland bowers, which were watered and adorned 

 by a glittering trout-stream : and I knew not whence she came. 



" Have you caught many fish this morning, sir ? " she asked, 

 setting down her pail upon the verdant earth. 



Her voice was in keeping with her appearance : clear-toned 

 and sweet, ringing with the soft music of the streamlet and the 

 brook. 



Startled by the unexpected vision, a few seconds elapsed before 

 I recovered sufficiently to lift the lid and show her the contents of 

 my basket. 



" Ah ! " she said. " I see you've caught a few ; " and, peeping 

 again into my creel, she added : " But aren't they rather small ? " 



I explained that owing to the nature of the stream and also of the 

 country it drained, the trout did not attain a large size ; and I told 



