CHAPTER FOURTEEN IN WHICH YET A FIFTH SHOCK ARRIVES, AND ROUNDS OUT THE DAY This certainly has been a big day, the first one which has required two chapters of my story. I could have put it all in one, it is true, but I believe there exists a general preference for frequent "stopping places," and I shall defer to this opinion, partly, perhaps, because I heartily endorse it myself. Granf'er sighted Lessie at once, brought his jug up and down twice at arm's length by way of recognition, and resumed his way with the shuffling, elbow-lifting gait which usually attaches to men advanced in years when in a hurry. How straight the girl's young body was! Uncorseted though I knew she must be, the lines of her figure conformed to the demands of physical beauty. From her naturally slender waist, belted only with the band made in her one piece frock, her back tapered up to shoulders which were shapely even under the poorly fitting dress. Her head, held more than ordinarily high now, as she watched Granf'er, was nobly poised on a firm, round neck, which I am most happy to record was not at all swan-like. I should like to add, in passing, that I have never seen a girl with a swan-like neck. If such exist, their natural place is in a dime museum, or a zoo. Such a monstrosity would, from the nature of her affliction, look like either a snake or a goose, neither of which have come down in humanity's annals as types of beauty. I must say it to the credit of most moderns, however, that the swan-necked lady is seldom paraded for us to admire. There were no crooks or loops in the Dryad's neck. Like a section of column it was; smooth, perfect, swelling to breast and shoulder. I clambered to my feet behind her, cursing mentally the harmless, hospitable, doddering old fellow approaching, and singing a pæan of rejoicing in my soul at the same time. Such things can be. The breeze freshened, and began sporting with the dazzling, home-made coiffure on the Dryad's head. She had not loosened it since she came from her bath, and that is why I saw so plainly the classic outlines of her head and throat. The madcap wind caught her dress, too, as she stood exposed to its sweep down the ravine, and cunningly smoothed it over her hip and thigh; tightly, snugly smoothed it, then took the fullness remaining and flapped and shook it out like a flag. So I knew, again through no fault of mine, that this girl who had never even heard of a modiste--of her skill to make limb or bust to order--had grown up with a form which Aphrodite might have owned. She did not know the breeze had played a trick upon her; or knowing, thought nothing of it. The seeds of our grosser nature sprout more readily in the hotbed of a drawing-room of "cultured" society, than in the windsweet, sun-disinfected acres of the out-of-doors. She spoke. "Granny's picklin' to-day. She's run out o' vinegar 'n' has sent Granf'er to fin' me to go to town 'n' git some more." "Let me go with you!" I urged.