“Sir,” said the man, “they all aspire to the honour of attending you while you bathe; you have only to choose which it shall be.  Half-a-crown will pay for the bath, the girl, and your coffee.”

As if I were the Grand Turk, I examined the swarm of rustic beauties, and threw my handkerchief at the one I liked the best.  We went into a closet, and shutting the door with the most serious air, without even looking at me, she undressed me, and put a cotton cap on my head, and as soon as she saw me in the water she undressed herself as coolly as possible, and without a word came into the bath.  Then she rubbed me all over, except in a certain quarter, which I had covered with my hands.  When I thought I had been manipulated sufficiently, I asked for coffee.  She got out of the bath, opened the door, and after asking for what I wanted got in again without the slightest consciousness.

When the coffee came she got out again to take it, shut the door, and returned to the bath, and held the tray while I was drinking, and when I had finished she remained beside me.

Although I had taken no great notice of her, I could see that she possessed all the qualifications a man could desire in a woman:  fine features, lively eyes, a pretty mouth, and an excellent row of teeth, a healthy complexion, a well-rounded bosom a curved back, and all else in the same sort.  I certainly thought her hands might have been softer, but their hardness was probably due to hard work.  Furthermore, she was only eighteen, and yet I remained cold to all her charms.  How was that?  That was the question I asked myself; and I think the reason probably was that she was too natural, too devoid of those assumed graces and coquettish airs which women employ with so much art for the seduction of men.  We only care for artifice and false show.  Perhaps, too, our senses, to be irritated, require woman’s charms to be veiled by modesty.  But if, accustomed as we are to clothe ourselves, the face is the smallest factor in our perfect happiness, how is it that the face plays the principal part in rendering a man amorous?  Why do we take the face as an index of a woman’s beauty, and why do we forgive her when the covered parts are not in harmony with her features?  Would it not be much more reasonable and sensible to veil the face, and to have the rest of the body naked?  Thus when we fall in love with a woman, we should only want, as the crown of our bliss, to see a face answerable to those other charms which had taken our fancy.  There can be no doubt that that would be the better plan, as in that case we should only be seduced by a perfect beauty, and we should grant an easy pardon if at the lifting of the mask we found ugliness instead of loveliness.  Under those circumstances an ugly woman, happy in exercising the seductive power of her other charms, would never consent to unveil herself; while the pretty ones would not have to be asked.  The plain women would not make us sigh for long; they would be easily