"Embrocation? There's a whole pool of something better for you than embrocation outside," Vic said with scorn. "You get those two extra costumes out, Sybil, will you? And you, kids, off with your boots."
There was no gainsaying this redoubtable Vic. Big, and brown, and beaming with good-humor, she stood over us. We just had to start unlacing our gaiters.
The girls trooped out into the meadow in coats over their bathing dresses. Vic and Sybil waited inexorably, for us. Reluctantly and stiffly I took off my overall. And I saw Vic's eyes fasten upon the garments that I was wearing underneath.
They were the same "pretties" that I always wore in town under my georgette blouses. I made them myself. The under-bodice that attracted Vic's notice was of bluish-pink crêpe-de-chine with mauve satin ribbon shoulder-straps, and with the wings of a sky-blue bird—for Happiness—embroidered across the front.
"That's a dinky 'casserole' you've got on there, young Celery-face," pronounced Vic, scrutinizing this garment. "Swanky Royal Air Service crest touch! And a silk 'chim' underneath it, too! My word! You won't be wearing those things long on the farm, though. Look here, Syb!"
Sybil, who had brought out the spare costumes, came up. From her voice and ways I'd fancied that she would sympathize with my own idea of dressing for the Land. This was to make it a point of self-respect that, though I must wear coarse holland and rough stuff for my outside things, my under-garments should still be as dainty as ever.
It surprised me when Sybil, glancing at my underthings, shook her head deprecatingly.
"Those won't do," she told me gently. "Not for cleaning out cow-houses in! You don't find a man-worker—well!" she laughed, "you never find a man wearing pink crêpe-de-chine all day. But what I mean is that when you're on a man's job you've got to dress the part, not just for the look of it, but for the use. A man works 'in the sweat of his brow'—and of his body. So he has got to have clothes he can sweat into comfortably—to put it frankly. He doesn't wear things that hold the moisture and cling—as yours are doing now."
I glanced down. The crepe and ribbons certainly were clinging to me. Moreover, they were very chilly now I'd stopped moving about.
"Give you your death of cold, those would," Vic declared, and Sybil, wrapping a towel round my shoulders, supported her.