leaden children stood in an attitude of listening on either side of
the carved porch of the palace, and between them a figure that seemed
to be watching me intently.

I looked and looked again--saw the green-grey folds, the tawny locks,
the mistletoe, the unearthly eyes of this unstirring figure, yet, when
I advanced but one strenuous pace, saw nought--only the little leaden
boys and the porch between them.

These childish listeners, the straggling briers, the impenetrable
thickets, the emerald gloaming, the marble stillness of the lofty
lichenous tower: I took courage. Could such things be in else than
Elfland? And she who out of beauty and being vanishes and eludes, what
else could she be than one of Elfland's denizens from whom a light and
credulous heart need fear nothing.

I trod like a shadow where the phantom had stood and opened the unused
door. I was about to pass into the deeper gloom of the house when a
hound appeared and stood regarding me with shining eyes in the faint
gloaming. He was presently joined by one as light-footed, but
milk-white and slimmer, and both turned their heads as if in question
of their master, who had followed close behind them.

This personage, because of the gloom, or the better to observe the
intruder on his solitude, carried a lantern whose beams were reflected
upon himself, attired as he was from head to foot in the palest
primrose, but with a countenance yet paler.

There was no hint of enmity or alarm or astonishment in the
colourless eyes that were fixed composedly on mine, nothing but