But presently, if you will only look virtuous
enough to prevent alarm, and vicious enough to avoid looking silly,
the blithe maidens will draw nearer and nearer to you, and soon
there will be one, the bravest of the sisters, who will venture
right up to your side and touch the hem of your coat, in playful
defiance of the danger, and then the rest will follow the daring of
their youthful leader, and gather close round you, and hold a
shrill controversy on the wondrous formation that you call a hat,
and the cunning of the hands that clothed you with cloth so fine;
and then growing more profound in their researches, they will pass
from the study of your mere dress to a serious contemplation of
your stately height, and your nut-brown hair, and the ruddy glow of
your English cheeks. And if they catch a glimpse of your ungloved
fingers, then again will they make the air ring with their sweet
screams of wonder and amazement, as they compare the fairness of
your hand with their warmer tints, and even with the hues of your
own sunburnt face. Instantly the ringleader of the gentle rioters
imagines a new sin; with tremulous boldness she touches, then
grasps your hand, and smoothes it gently betwixt her own, and pries
curiously into its make and colour, as though it were silk of
Damascus, or shawl of Cashmere.
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