thing could have been more graceful, more charming than the
outline of these full lips of hers, and her round white chin, modulating
downward with a certain delicious roundness to her neck, her throat and
the sweet feminine amplitude of her breast. The slightest movement of
her head and shoulders sent a gentle undulation through all this
beauty of soft outlines and smooth surfaces, the delicate amber shadows
deepening or fading or losing themselves imperceptibly in the pretty
rose-colour of her cheeks, or the dark, warm-tinted shadow of her thick
brown hair.

Her hair seemed almost to have a life of its own, almost Medusa-like,
thick, glossy and moist, lying in heavy, sweet-smelling masses over her
forehead, over her small ears with their pink lobes, and far down upon
her nape. Deep in between the coils and braids it was of a bitumen
brownness, but in the sunlight it vibrated with a sheen like tarnished
gold.

Like most large girls, her movements were not hurried, and this
indefinite deliberateness of gesture, this slow grace, this certain ease
of attitude, was a charm that was all her own.

But Hilma's greatest charm of all was her simplicity--a simplicity that
was not only in the calm regularity of her face, with its statuesque
evenness of contour, its broad surface of cheek and forehead and the
masses of her straight smooth hair, but was apparent as well in the long
line of her carriage, from her foot to her waist and the single deep
swell from her waist to her shoulder. Almost unconsciously she dressed
in harmony with this note of simplicity, and on this occasion wore a
skirt of plain dark blue calico and a white shirt waist crisp from the
laundry.

And yet, for all the dignity of this rigourous simplicity, there were
about Hilma small contradictory suggestions of feminine daintiness,
charming beyond words. Even Annixter could not help noticing that her
feet were narrow and slender, and that the little steel buckles of her
low shoes were polished bright, and that her fingertips and nails were
of a fine rosy pink.

He found himself wondering how it was that a girl in Hilma's position
should be able to keep herself so pretty, so trim, so clean and
feminine, but he reflected that her work was chiefly in the dairy, and
even there of the lightest order. She was on the ranch more for the sake
of being with her parents than from any necessity of employment. Vaguely
he seemed to understand that, in that great new land