The danger did not seem to be imminent, for the young girl continued to sing, but the cavalier who led the march took the precaution to adjust his musket on his left thigh, and at frequent intervals to test his firearms, leaving behind him a little cloud of bluish smoke. This man, a military figure in the full strength of manhood, wore an old leather jerkin, a large gray cap, scarlet breeches, heavy boots, and rode a small white horse; a hanger or hunting-knife was fastened to his belt, and a tall black hound, with long hair and a leather collar bristling with iron points, walked in front of his horse. About thirty steps behind this forward sentinel came an old man and a young girl. The latter was mounted on an ambling nag, as black as jet, elegantly caparisoned with a silk net and a blue velvet cloth; the silver mounting of the bridle glittered in the rays of the setting sun; the reins, scarcely held by the young girl, fell carelessly upon the neck of the nag, whose gentle and regular step by no means interrupted the harmonious measure of the beautiful traveller’s song. She wore right royally the charming riding-habit so often reproduced by painters in the reign of Louis XIII. On her head was a large black hat with blue feathers, which fell backward on a wide collar of Flanders lace; her close-fitting coat of pearl-gray taffeta, with large, square basques, had a long skirt of the same material and colour, both skirt and waist ornamented with delicate lace-work of sky-blue silk, whose pale shade matched admirably the colour of the habit If one ever doubted the fact that the Greek type had been preserved in all its purity among a few of the families of Marseilles and lower Provence, since the colonisation of the Phoenicians,--the rest of the population recalling more the Arabian and Ligurian physiognomy,--the features of this young girl would have presented a striking proof of the transmission of the antique beauty in all its original perfection. Nothing could be more agreeable, more delicate, or purer than the exquisite lines of her lovely countenance; nothing more limpid than the blue of her large eyes, fringed with long black lashes; nothing whiter than the ivory of her queenly brow, around which played the light chestnut curls that contrasted beautifully with the perfect arch of eyebrows as black as jet, and soft as velvet; the proportions of her well-rounded form resembled Hebe, or the Venus of Praxiteles, rather than the Venus of Milo. As she sang she yielded herself to the measured step of her steed, and every movement of her charming and graceful body revealed new treasures of beauty. Her small, arched foot, encased in a boot of cordovan leather, laced to the ankle, appeared from time to time beneath the ample folds of her long skirt, while her hand, as small as that of a child, gloved in embroidered chamois-skin, carelessly played with the switch by which she urged the gait of her nag.