the beauties she still keeps
concealed; like a maid half-ready for her pillow, turned motionless on
the brink of her couch by the oncoming dreams to which she so soon will
wholly yield herself. Let us not linger, for her chamber is sacred, and
we too have dreams that await our up-yielding.

Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group
upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their
slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example,
pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as she
swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And Martin
amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she plucked a
leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. And then she
snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And next she caught at
an apple, and tossed it after the twig.

"Well?" said Martin Pippin.

"Don't be in such a hurry," said Jessica. She got off the swing and
walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a sudden
she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole weight of
her body against the trunk, and began to whistle.

"Give it up?" said Martin Pippin.

"Stupid!" said Jessica. "I've guessed it."

"Impossible!" said Martin. "Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles were
only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being guessed
is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do give it up
and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the answer, please,
please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you."

"I shall never have saved a young man's life easier," said Jessica,
"and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save
yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady's life?"

"As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it," said Martin.
"It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always dying to
have, or to do, or to know--this thing or that."

"I hope," said Jessica, "I shall not die before I know everything there
is to know."

"What a small wish," said Martin.

"Have you a bigger one?"

"Yes," said he; "to know everything, there is not to know."

Jessica: Oh, but those are the only things I do know.

Martin: It is a knowledge common to women.

Jessica: How do YOU know?

Martin: I'm sure I don't know.

Jessica: I don't think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal about
women.

And she