"How and where shall I begin?" answered I. "You forget that I too have questions to ask; I am bewildered. Who and what are you? In what country am I? Where did you get that beautiful dress?" I stepped a little away from her to observe the beauty of her form.
"We try to make all our garments beautiful," she answered, simply; "but this is the common dress of all—or rather the dress commonly worn in the country. We dress a little differently in town—but what do you find peculiar in my attire? What else could I wear out in the fields?"
I looked at the drapery, which did not hang lower than the knee; at the girdle that barely indicated the waist; at the chiton gathered by a brooch on one shoulder, leaving bare the whole length of her richly moulded arm.
"I would not have you wear anything else," said I, restraining my admiration; "but our women dress differently."
"Tell me about them," said she.
"I will," answered I, "but tell me first where I am and where we are going?"
"You are near a place called Tyringham," answered she, "and you are going with me to breakfast at the Hall."
As she spoke we were walking down a grassy slope and came in sight of a meadow on the left, through which meandered a crystal stream; it flowed from the right of the hill on which we stood, and just below where it fell in cascades over successive ledges it was straddled by a mill smothered in jasmine and purple clematis. The moment the mill came in sight my companion uttered a loud call that came echoing back to us from the surrounding hills. Her call was answered by several voices, and soon there came to meet us a youth as handsome in his way as my own companion. He, too, wore the Greek dress; he was about eighteen years of age and so like the girl that I guessed at once he was her brother. He put me out of countenance by staring at me with open-mouthed wonder and then bursting into an uncontrolled roar of laughter. But his sister took him by the arm and shook him.
"Stop laughing," she said. "Don't you see he doesn't like it?"
The boy stopped immediately—for I confess his laughter was not as agreeable to me as hers—and there came upon him an expression of the gentlest solicitude.