The scented wind from Claudia's fan stirred my hair, and I remembered it was still the hair of a forest runner, neither short nor sufficiently long for the queue, and powdered not a trace.
I looked around at Claudia's bright face, more brilliant for the saucy patches and newly powdered hair.
"La," said she, "you vie with Hiakatoo yonder in Mohawk finery, Jack,—all beads and thrums and wampum. And yet you have a pretty leg for a silken stocking, too."
"In the Bush," said I, "the backwoods aristocracy make little of your silk hosen, Claudia. Our stockings are leather and our powder black, and our patches are of buckskin and are sewed on elbow and knee with pack-thread or sinew. Or we use them, too, for wadding."
"It is a fashion like another," she remarked with a shrug, but watching me intently over her fan's painted edge.
"The mode is a tyrant," said I, "and knows neither pity nor good taste."
"How so?"
"Why, Hiakatoo also wears paint, Claudia."
"Meaning that I wear lip-rouge and lily-balm? Well, I do, my impertinent friend."
"Who could suspect it?" I protested, mockingly.