the passing figure of the young girl was seen, but the dazzling green
and gold of the hillside, and the far-off silhouetted crests of the
Coast Range.

But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When she
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