returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large piece
of yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting." These she
deposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood to
assure herself that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot had
invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began to
undress. A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to the
circumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs,
who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently
moving band of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays and
inextricably mingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan
obscurity, veiled alike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd. Within
these hallowed precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling
water, and at times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray
of sunlight trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline
of a childish bosom.

When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of the
wood, she was completely transformed.

It was the figure that had appeared to the Postmaster; the slight,
erect, graceful form of a young woman modishly attired. It was Flip,
but Flip made taller by the lengthened skirt and clinging habiliments
of fashion. Flip freckled, but, through the cunning of a relief of
yellow color in her gown, her piquant brown-shot face and eyes
brightened and intensified until she seemed like a spicy odor made
visible. I cannot affirm that the judgment of Flip's mysterious
_modiste_ was infallible, or that the taste of Mr. Lance Harriott, her
patron, was fastidious; enough that it was picturesque, and perhaps not
more glaring and extravagant than the color in which Spring herself had
once clothed the sere hillside where Flip was now seated. The phantom