I had lived much in the capital, had been educated
in our best college, and was accustomed to associate with pretty women.
I had also crossed the water and had seen all that was most worthy of
admiration in the Argentine cities. And remember that with us a youth
of fifteen already knows something of life. This child, playing with
the waves, was like nothing I had seen before. I regarded her not as
a mere human creature; she seemed more like some being from I know not
what far-off celestial region who had strayed to earth, just as a bird
of white and azure plumage, and unknown to our woods, sometimes appears,
blown hither from a distant tropical country or island, filling those
who see it with wonder and delight. Imagine, if you can, Margarita
with her shining hair loose to the winds, swift and graceful in her
motions as the waves she plays with, her sapphire eyes sparkling like
sunlight on the waters, the tender tints of the sea-shell in her
ever-changing countenance, with a laughter that seems to echo the wild
melody of the sandpiper's note. Margarita has inherited the form, not
the spirit, of the child Transita. She is an exquisite statue endowed
with life. Transita, with lines equally graceful and colours just as
perfect, had caught the spirit of the wind and sunshine and was all
freedom, motion, fire--a being half human, half angelic.
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