It seemed the cry of an animal--a wild beast--and I began to think I was
mistaken in the place; but the sun was near its setting now, and it was
too late to seek further afield. I therefore returned to my boat and
withdrew under the overarching boughs of some trees where I could see
without being seen.

I had not long to wait. Between the flowering shrubs I noticed that a
figure--a woman by her undulating grace--was coming down the path. A
thin wrap or veil of changing stuff, with gleams of azure and fiery red,
was flung about her person. Presently she stepped upon the beach into
the mellow gloaming, and stood like a statue, with her eyes bent on the
sinking orb, which threw a trail of splendour across the lake.

It was the priestess, and apparently alone. A closer view of her person
brought me no disenchantment. Perfect beauty, like the sublime, produces
an impression of the infinite, and I only speak the literal truth when I
say that she appeared infinitely beautiful to me. Her golden hair,
rippling over the delicate ear and gathered into a knot behind, her
large violet eyes and blooming white skin, her Grecian profile and
stately yet flowing form, might have become an Aphrodite of Xeuxis or
Praxiteles; but her serene and gracious countenance beamed with a pure
seraphic light which is wanting to the classical goddess, and must be
sought in the Madonnas of Raphael. Moreover, she had an indescribable
look of girlish innocence, winsome sweetness, and pitiful tenderness,
which belonged to none of these ideals, and marked her as a simple,
loving, perishable child of earth.

I gazed upon her marvellous beauty with a kind of religious veneration,
at once attracted by her womanly charm and awed by her god-like dignity,