" Work was sordid, for she wore garments
which made her the leader of fashion. She possessed a pair of--well, a
bifurcated garment--and her whole life was spent in trying to live up to
it--or them. She succeeded to a certain extent. Her ways were mincing and
precise, and she lazed away her days quite artistically. A can of water
was too heavy for her to carry, less than two hours "spell" at a time
quite an offence to her ideal of the amount of repose that a lady
wearing the bifurcated garment should permit herself. She was wont to
sit in the shade of the mango-tree and pretend to do a little gardening.
It was all pretence. What she really loved to do was to wander among the
bloodwoods--with Tom, of course--with next to nothing on, the next to
nothing being the drawers. There, you have them. Then you saw her at her
best--or rather worst, for she was a thin sapling of a girl, of a dull
coppery colour, and the garment was not always snowy-white.
Hers, after all, was an ideal existence. She had plenty to eat, as much
tobacco as was good for her, and outer raiment that in gaudiness
outrivalled the flame-tree and the yellow hibiscus. She was the
favourite of two consorts, and only when her pride and scorpion-like
attributes got the better of her was she corrected.
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