"
"How can that be?" asked Mary, in comical tribulation; "is not this a
man's doublet and hose, and this hat--is it not a man's hat? They are
all for a man; then why do I not look like one, I ask? Tell me what is
wrong. Oh! I thought I looked just like a man; I thought the disguise
was perfect."
"Well," returned Brandon, "if you will permit me to say so, you are
entirely too symmetrical and shapely ever to pass for a man."
The flaming color was in her cheeks, as Brandon went on: "Your feet
are too small, even for a boy's feet. I don't think you could be made
to look like a man if you worked from now till doomsday."
Brandon spoke in a troubled tone, for he was beginning to see in
Mary's perfect and irrepressible womanhood an insurmountable
difficulty right across his path.
"As to your feet, you might find larger shoes, or, better still,
jack-boots; and, as to your hose, you might wear longer trunks, but
what to do about the doublet I am sure I do not know."
Mary looked up helpless and forlorn, and the hot face went into her
bended elbow as a realization of the situation seemed to dawn upon
her.
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