shaken by a little lirrup of sound, as light as rain dropping from
leaves above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on
the meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement
that this was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the
Pond. So, rising silently, he wandered through the trees, and
keeping his eyes fixed on the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty
should tempt him to speech, he went across the open hill the Pond.
Here he knelt down again, listening to the childlike bird, until at
last the young piping ceased with a joyous chuckle. And at that
instant, reflected in the Pond, he saw the silver star that watches
the invisible young moon, and dipped his head.

Oh, my dear maids! When he lifted it again, all wet and bewildered,
he saw upon the opposite border of the Pond, a figure, the white
figure of--a woman! a girl! a child! He could not tell, for she lay
three parts in the shadowy water with her back towards him, and his
gaze and senses swam; but in that faint starlight one bare and
lovely arm, as white as the crescent moon, was clear to him,
upcurved to her shadowy hair. So she reclined, and so he knelt, both
motionless, and his heart trembled (even as it had trembled at the
bird's song) with a wish to go near to her, or at least to whisper
to her across the water. Indeed, he was on the point of doing so,
when a sudden contraction seized him, his eyes closed in a delicious
agony, and he sneezed once vigorously; and in that moment of
shattering blackness he recalled his vow, and rising turned his back
upon the vision and groped his way again to the shelter of the
trees.

Here he remained till dawn in meditation, but as to the nature of
his meditations I am, dear maidens, ignorant. Nor do I know in what