Nevertheless, when breakfast was done, she consented to try on the clothes. I left her eyeing them doubtfully, and stroll’d away by the river’s bank. In a while her voice call’d to me—
“Oh, Jack—they do not fit at all!”
“Why, ’tis admirable!” said I, returning, and scanning her. Now this was a lie: but she took me more than ever, so pretty and comical she look’d in the dress.
“And I cannot walk a bit in them!” she pouted, strutting up and down.
“Swing your arms more, and let them hang looser.”
“And my hair. Oh, Jack, I have such beautiful hair!”
“It must come off,” said I, pulling the shears out of my pocket.
“And look at these huge boots!”
Indeed, this was the main trouble, for I knew they would hurt her in walking: yet she made more fuss about her hair, and only gave in when I scolded her roundly. So I took the shears and clipp’d the chestnut curls, one by one, while she cried for vexation; and took occasion of her tears to smuggle the longest lock inside my doublet.