AN UNFORGETTABLE PICTURE 23 



account of her slimness — an elegant figure of a young 

 lady of about seventeen or eighteen, all in blackest 

 black, with a black feather boa and a wisp of black 

 crape on a transparent or translucent hat of large 

 dimensions which she was wearing — one of those 

 wide yet almost invisible hats made of some unsub- 

 stantial material like thistledown or gossamer. With 

 her left hand she anxiously held on to the rim or 

 brim of the wonderful hat fluttering on her loose 

 pale golden or honey-coloured hair. It was in an 

 incessant flutter, trying to escape from her head and 

 hand to fly over the hills and frolic with the wind. 

 In her right hand, held out before her, she carried a 

 tall slim vessel of some sort which sparkled like silver- 

 white fire in the sunshine. And as she came down 

 the rough rocky path towards me, stepping carefully, 

 her eyes fixed on the goblet, she walked between two 

 hedge-like rows of furze bushes covered with masses 

 of shining yellow and orange-coloured blossoms. An 

 unforgettable picture ! As she came nearer I perceived 

 that she was in great trouble owing to the wind, 

 also that the sparkling object in her hand was a 

 tall crystal goblet, brimful of Cornish cream, which 

 she no doubt had purchased at the little farm near 

 the cliff, and was conveying to the place she was 

 lodging in. The rude, uncivilised wind was worrying 

 her all it could, agitating her volatile hat, whirling 

 the fine wavy loose ends of her boa about her head, 

 and causing her skirts to wind themselves like black 

 serpents about her pretty legs. And whenever they 

 got tightly wound about them, she would stop and 



