You have seen
her, have you not, Reader, the pretty girl in the picture? She
leaps the six-barred gate with a yard and a half to spare, turning
round in her saddle the while to make some smiling remark to the
comic man behind, who, of course, is standing on his head in the
ditch. She floats gracefully off Dieppe on stormy mornings. Her
baigneuse--generally of chiffon and old point lace--has not lost a
curve. The older ladies, bathing round her, look wet. Their dress
clings damply to their limbs. But the pretty girl of Art dives, and
never a curl of her hair is disarranged. The pretty girl of Art
stands lightly on tip-toe and volleys a tennis-ball six feet above
her head. The pretty girl of Art keeps the head of the punt
straight against a stiff current and a strong wind. SHE never gets
the water up her sleeve, and down her back, and all over the
cushions. HER pole never sticks in the mud, with the steam launch
ten yards off and the man looking the other way. The pretty girl of
Art skates in high-heeled French shoes at an angle of forty-five to
the surface of the ice, both hands in her muff. SHE never sits down
plump, with her feet a yard apart, and says "Ough." The pretty girl
of Art drives tandem down Piccadilly, during the height of the
season, at eighteen miles an hour.
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