better to point out its defects to her maid.

"I don't want to look as if I were wound up in a sheet, but yet I want to
be left freedom of action. You can not get it into your head, Julie,
that this material will not stretch. You see now that I stoop a little-
Ah! you see it at last, that's well."

Weak minds! Is it not true, my pious friend, that there are those who
can be absorbed by such small matters? I find these preoccupations to be
so frivolous that I was pained at being even the involuntary recipient of
them, and I splashed the water with my hands to announce my presence and
put a stop to a conversation which shocked me.

"I am coming to you, Robert; get into the water. Has your sister arrived
yet?" said my cousin, raising her voice; then softly, and addressing her
maid, she added: "Yes, of course, lace it tightly. I want support."

One side of the tent was raised, and my relative appeared. I know not
why I shuddered, as if at the approach of some danger. She advanced two
or three steps on the fine sand, drawing from her fingers as she did so,
the gold rings she was accustomed to wear; then she stopped, handed them
to Julie, and, with a movement which I can see now, but which it is
impossible for me to describe to you, kicked off into the grass the
slippers, with red bows, which enveloped her feet.

She had only taken three paces, but it sufficed to enable me to remark
the singularity of her gait. She walked with short, timid steps, her
bare arms close to her sides.

She had divested herself of all the outward tokens of a woman, save the