the embroideries of her dress. Her dress was brown, and she had brown
hair and soft brown eyes like a little doe's. The moment I saw her I
loved her.

The black horse stopped before me. The wild troop drew up and waited
behind. The great, lean rider looked at me a moment, and then, lifting
the little girl in his long arms, bent down and set her gently on her
feet on the mossy earth in the mist beside me. I got up to greet her,
and we stood smiling at each other. And in that moment as we stood the
black horse moved forward, the muffled trampling began again, the wild
company swept on its way, and the white mist closed behind it as if it
had never passed.

Of course I know how strange this will seem to people who read it, but
that cannot be helped and does not really matter. It was in that way the
thing happened, and it did not even seem strange to me. Anything might
happen on the moor--anything. And there was the fair little girl with
the eyes like a doe's.

I knew she had come to play with me, and we went together to my house
among the bushes of broom and gorse and played happily. But before we
began I saw her stand and look wonderingly at the dark-red stain on
the embroideries on her childish breast. It was as if she were asking
herself how it came there and could not understand. Then she picked
a fern and a bunch of the thick-growing bluebells and put them in her
girdle in such a way that they hid its ugliness.

I did not really know how long she stayed. I only knew that we were
happy, and that, though her way of playing was in some ways different
from mine, I loved it and her. Presently the mist lifted and the sun