I was there at midnight, a mild radiant night of late April. There
were sheep at graze there, for though it was darkish under the
three-quarter moon, I was used to the dark, and could see them, a
woolly mass, quietly feeding close together. I saw no shepherd
anywhere; but I remember that his dog sat on his haunches apart,
watching them. He was prick-eared, bright-eyed; he grinned and panted
intensely. I didn't then know why he was so excited, but very soon I
did.

I became aware, gradually, that a woman stood among the sheep. She had
not been there when I first saw them, I am sure; nor did I see her
approach them or enter their school. Yet there she was in the midst of
them, seen now by me as she had evidently been seen for some time by
the dog, seen, I suppose, by the sheep--at any rate she stood in the
midst of them, as I say, with her hand actually upon the shoulder of
one of them--but not feared or doubted by any soul of us. The dog was
vividly interested, but did not budge; the sheep went on feeding; I
stood bolt upright, watching.

I knew her the moment I saw her. She was the exquisitely formed, slim
and glowing creature I had seen before, when she launched herself into
the night as a God of Homer--Hermes or Thetis--launched out from
Olympus' top into the sea--"ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ," and words fail
me to describe the perfection of her being, a radiant simulacrum of
our own, the inconscient self-sufficiency, the buoyancy and freedom
which she showed me. You may sometimes see boys at their maddest tip
of expectation stand waiting as she now stood, quivering on the
extreme edge of adventure; yet even in their case there is a
consciousness of well being, a kind of rolling of anticipation upon