imagination."

"I am no poet, that I know of," said Donatello, "but yet, as I tell you,
I have been very happy here, in the company of this fountain and this
nymph. It is said that a Faun, my oldest forefather, brought home hither
to this very spot a human maiden, whom he loved and wedded. This spring
of delicious water was their household well."

"It is a most enchanting fable!" exclaimed Kenyon; "that is, if it be
not a fact."

"And why not a fact?" said the simple Donatello. "There is, likewise,
another sweet old story connected with this spot. But, now that I
remember it, it seems to me more sad than sweet, though formerly the
sorrow, in which it closes, did not so much impress me. If I had the
gift of tale-telling, this one would be sure to interest you mightily."

"Pray tell it," said Kenyon; "no matter whether well or ill. These wild
legends have often the most powerful charm when least artfully told."

So the young Count narrated a myth of one of his Progenitors,--he might
have lived a century ago, or a thousand years, or before the Christian
epoch, for anything that Donatello knew to the contrary,--who had made
acquaintance with a fair creature belonging to this fountain. Whether
woman or sprite was a mystery, as was all else about her, except that
her life and soul were somehow interfused throughout the gushing water.
She was a fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full of pleasant
little mischiefs, fitful and changeable with the whim of the moment, but
yet as constant as her native stream, which kept the same gush and flow
forever, while marble crumbled over and around it. The fountain woman