"Do you become often as fatigued as you are now?" continued Paletta.
"Often more so. I have posed for nearly an hour upon one foot with extended arms in a dance of bacchantes, till I have fainted. Oftentimes I am kept in a running position upon one foot, with the other far behind me, in Atalanta's race; sometimes suspended by cords from the ceiling, with arms and legs in horribly uncomfortable positions, till everything seems to spin before me."
"Do you dislike to pose for male artists?" asked Paletta.
"Dislike? Why should I with so fine a figure as this?" answered the woman, throwing off her cloak to resume her pose. "I'd like it better if I had a handsome face, but I'd like it much worse if I had flabby flesh or buniony feet."
Paletta saw that no question of modesty entered the model's mind, and she went back to her easel to paint the rounded limbs and marble huelessness of fair Dian, chastest of all Olympia's deities, wondering if, after all, what is called modesty does not come as much of habit as of nature--if the veiled face of the Oriental is not as immodest as the unclothedness of the artist's model.
Thy light streams far, thou gladdening star, O'er vale and forest, tower and town: From land and sea men look to thee, In every clime, as night comes down. But ah! were all the eyes that mark Thy rising, closed in endless dark, Undimmed would glitter still Thy bright unpitying spark!
I heed thee not. In yonder cot, As home I haste, from toil set free, Through dusk and damp the casement-lamp Shines clear across the fields for me. Dear light! dear heart! how well I know, If bitter Death should lay me low, Dark would that casement be, And quenched your winsome glow!
"I can't reach it," declared Georgy. "You boys are all growing so tall that a girl has to mount on stilts in order to go about with you."
"I will find a log," said I, looking about us.
"Come!" struck in Jack Holt, laughing, "make a footstool of me, Georgy;" and without another word he flung himself flat on his face. She was never loath to put her foot upon any of our necks, figuratively speaking, and now, with a burst of laughter, she took Jack at his word, and planting herself on his shoulders peered down through the coils of Virginia creeper into the cunningly devised bird's nest in the hollow of an oak tree. There were five delicately tinted eggs, and she tried in vain to squeeze her slim hand through the aperture and possess herself of them.