d some
cushions."

"Why do you sit there on the floor, all doubled up and--heavens, it must
be uncomfortable,--if you are so tired? How do you manage your legs?"

"My legs? Oh, my legs are never tired. It is my poor back." Whereupon
she slowly, gracefully straightened out one of her legs, and without
changing the position of her body, raised it, with toes and instep on
a perfect line, until the heel was some three feet from the floor. Then
she swung it slowly backward, twisting her body sinuously to one side.
A moment later the foot was stretched out behind her and she lifted
herself steadily, without apparent exertion, upon the other knee,--and
then stood erect. Ruth watched this remarkable feat in wonder and
admiration.

"How--how on earth do you do it?" she cried. "Why,--you must be as
strong as--as--a--" She was about to say horse, and floundered.

"But I trust not as clumsy as one," said Madame Obosky, stretching her
body in luxurious abandon. "I sit on the floor like zat, my friend,
because my back is tired, not my legs. If I lie back in ze deck chair
when I am tired, I would relax,--and would make so much more regret for
myself when the time came to get up again. Besides, it is a good way
to rest, zis way. Have you never tried it? Do, sometime. The whole body
rests, it sags; the muscles have nothing to do, so they become soft and
grateful. The backbone, the shoulders, the neck,--they all droop and
oh, zey--they are so happy to be like zat. It is the same as when I am
asleep and they are not running errands all the time for my brain. The
Arab sits like zat when he rests,--and the Hindoo,--and they are strong,
oh, so very strong. Try it, sometime, Miss Clinton, when you are very
tired. It is the best way to let go, all over."

Ruth laughed. "I couldn't do it to save my soul."

"Oh, I do not mean for you to get up as I did, or use your leg as I did.
You could not do zat. You are too old. That is one of the fruits, one
of the benefits of the cruelest kind of child labour. I was a great many
years in making myself able to do zat. See! Put your hand on my leg. Now
my back,--my arm. What you think, eh?"

Ruth, in some embarrassment, had shyly obeyed her. The dancer's thigh
was like a column of warm iron; her waist, free as ever from stays, was
firm and somehow suggestive of actual resilience; her shoulders and
back possessed the hard, rippling muscles of a well-developed boy; her
shapely forearm was as hard as s