exclamation, his face turning paler. He stepped into the concealment
of the thick bushes at one side, where he stood gazing out,
motionless except for a slight trembling. Down the road he had seen
a white-clad figure just coming out of the village; it was too far
away to be recognized, but it was a young girl, walking with a quick
and springing step, and he seemed to know who it was.

She had not gone very far before she came to a thick hedge which
lined the roadside and hid her from the other's view; he could not
see her again until she came to the place where the streamlet was
crossed by a bridge, and where the little path turned off towards
the forest. In the meantime he stood waiting anxiously; for when she
reached there he would see her plainly for the first time, and also
know if she were coming to the spring. She must have stopped to look
at something, for the other had almost started from his hiding place
in his eagerness when finally she swept past the bushes. She turned
down the path straight towards him, and he clasped his hands
together in delight as he gazed at her.

And truly she was a very vision of the springtime, as she passed
down the meadows that were gleaming with their first sprinkling of
buttercups. She was clad in a dress of snowy white, which the wind
swept before her as she walked; and it had stolen one strand of her
golden hair to toss about and play with. She came with all the
eagerness and spring of the brooklet that danced beside her, her
cheeks glowing with health and filled with the laughter of the
morning. Surely, of all the flowers of the May-time there is none so
fair as the maiden. And the young man thought as he stood watching
her that in all the world there was no maiden so fair as this.