a first touch of silver fell on the hoary flint.

'Oh, young bird of heaven in that Devil's clutch!'

Sounds like the baying of boar-hounds alarmed him. They whined into
silence.

He fell back. The meadow breathed peace, and more and more the
nightingales volumed their notes. As in a charmed circle of palpitating
song, he succumbed to languor. The brook rolled beside him fresh as an
infant, toying with the moonlight. He leaned over it, and thrice
waywardly dipped his hand in the clear translucence.

Was it his own face imaged there?

Farina bent close above an eddy of the water. It whirled with a strange
tumult, breaking into lines and lights a face not his own, nor the
moon's; nor was it a reflection. The agitation increased. Now a wreath
of bubbles crowned the pool, and a pure water-lily, but larger, ascended
wavering.

He started aside; and under him a bright head, garlanded with gemmed
roses, appeared. No fairer figure of woman had Farina seen. Her visage
had the lustrous white of moonlight, and all her shape undulated in a
dress of flashing silver-white, wonderful to see. The Lady of the Water
smiled on him, and ran over with ripples and dimples of limpid beauty.
Then, as he retreated on the meadow grass, she swam toward him, and
taking his hand, pressed it to her. After her touch the youth no longer
feared. She curved her finger, and beckoned him on. All that she did
was done flowingly. The youth was a shadow in her silver track as she