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Standing above the stream, she threw on the greensward, from her

shoulders, her waving shawl, red as carnelian; and, like a

swimmer who bends down to the wintry bath before she ventures to

plunge in, she knelt and slowly inclined on her side; finally, as

if drawn down by the stream of coral, she fell upon it and

stretched out at full length: she rested her elbow on the grass,

her temple on her palm, with her head bent down; beneath her head

glittered the vellum paper of a French book; over the alabaster

pages of the book there wound her black ringlets and pink

ribbons.

Amid the emerald of the luxuriant grass, on the carnelian shawl,

in her long gown, as though in a wrapper of coral, against which

her hair was relieved at one end and her black shoes at the

other, while along the sides glittered her snowy stockings, her

handkerchief, and the whiteness of her hands and face, she showed

from afar like a many-coloured caterpillar, crawling upon a green

maple leaf.