ces they
discovered behind a rock, seated at the foot of an ash tree, a youth in
the dress of a peasant, whose face they were unable at the moment to see
as he was leaning forward, bathing his feet in the brook that flowed
past. They approached so silently that he did not perceive them, being
fully occupied in bathing his feet, which were so fair that they looked
like two pieces of shining crystal brought forth among the other stones
of the brook. The whiteness and beauty of these feet struck them with
surprise, for they did not seem to have been made to crush clods or to
follow the plough and the oxen as their owner's dress suggested; and so,
finding they had not been noticed, the curate, who was in front, made a
sign to the other two to conceal themselves behind some fragments of rock
that lay there; which they did, observing closely what the youth was
about. He had on a loose double-skirted dark brown jacket bound tight to
his body with a white cloth; he wore besides breeches and gaiters of
brown cloth, and on his head a brown montera; and he had the gaiters
turned up as far as the middle of the leg, which verily seemed to be of
pure alabaster.

As soon as he had done bathing his beautiful feet, he wiped them with a
towel he took from under the montera, on taking off which he raised his
face, and those who were watching him had an opportunity of seeing a
beauty so exquisite that Cardenio said to the curate in a whisper:

"As this is not Luscinda, it is no human creature but a divine being."

The youth then took off the montera, and shaking his head from side to
side there broke loose and spread out a mass of hair that the beams of
the sun might have envied; by this they knew that what had seemed a
peasant was a lovely woman, nay the most beautiful the eyes of two of
them had ever beheld, or even Cardenio's if they had not seen and known
Luscinda, for he afterwards declared that only the beauty of Luscinda
could compare with this. The long auburn tresses not only covered her
shoulders, but such was their length and abundance, concealed her all
round beneath their masses, so that except the feet nothing of her form
was visible. She now used her hands as a comb, and if her feet had seemed
like bits of crystal in the water, her hands looked like pieces of driven
snow among her locks; all which increased not only the admiration of the
three beholders, but their anxiety to learn who she was. With this object
they resolve