A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down.Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's,soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some darkplumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish:and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.