"'I don't think they are,' the girl answered. 'You, for instance, are more beautiful than Viola. Look at your arm;' and as she said this she laid her dark hand upon his shoulder. 'How fair you are by the side of any of us! Look at your hair;' and she ran her fingers through the bright soft waves of gold. 'Do you not think that it is more beautiful than our long dark tresses?'
"'No, I do not,' he said. 'Viola's hair is beautiful, and so is yours; far more beautiful than mine.'
"'There you are mistaken,' she said. 'You do not know. Come and look.'
"The two bent forward over the still clear water. It was a pretty picture which they saw reflected; the young boy's fair sun-tanned face surrounded with a bright halo of curls through which the sunlight played. The girl bending over him, her dark tresses, which she had unbound, falling over his shoulders and covering them both as with a cloud; her breast, which hitherto looked brown against the white of her tunic, now by contrast with the deep shade of her hair was reflected back with the brilliancy of ivory.
"'You are beautiful,' was all the boy said.
"'We are beautiful,' the girl corrected. 'Do you think,' she continued, 'that I am as lovely as your mistress?'
"'Oh dear, no!' the boy replied, with uncomplimentary frankness. Then, feeling that he had angered her, he went on, 'You see it is different. She is so young, so delicate!' And saying this he looked again into the water, contrasting in his mind the tender budding grace of the maiden with the reflection of developed womanhood before him.
"Myra laughed; but though it was not her desire to win the boy from his devotion to Viola, there was beneath the laughter in her eyes an angry, jealous light.
"'Ah! my pretty infant,' she cried, 'when you are older you will grow wiser. So you love this little mistress of yours, do you?'
"'I worship her!' he said, slightly correcting the verb, and giving it, not only a fuller, but more chastened meaning.