"And what are those thick woods called over there?"

She shook her head. "There is no name," she said.

"But you have a name--Lucy Gray; and you started out--do you
remember?--one winter's day at dusk, and wandered on and on, on and
on, the snow falling in the dark, till--Do you remember?"

She stood quite still, her small, serious face full to the east,
striving with far-off dreams. And a merry little smile passed over her
lips. "That will be a long time since," she said, "and I must be off
home." And as if it had been but an apparition of my eyes that had
beset and deluded me, she was gone; and I found myself sitting astride
in the full brightness of the sun's first beams, alone.

What omen was this, then, that I should meet first a phantom on my
journey? One thing only was clear: Rosinante could trust to her five
wits better than I to mine. So leaving her to take what way she
pleased, I rode on, till at length we approached the woods I had
descried. Presently we were jogging gently down into a deep and misty
valley flanked by bracken and pines, from which issued into the crisp
air of morning a most delicious aromatic smell, that seemed at least
to prove this valley not far remote from Araby.

I do not think I was disturbed, though I confess to having been a
little amazed to see how profound this valley was into which we were
descending, yet how swiftly climbed the sun, as if to pace with us so
that we should not be in shadow, howsoever fast we journeyed. I was
astonished to see flowers of other seasons than summer by the wayside,
and to hear in June, for no other month could bear such green