And suddenly he came to a still water, above which young beeches
lovingly entwined their arms. He looked in the water, and his eyes
were riveted to it as if by enchantment. He could not move, but
stood and gazed in the soft, placid mirror, from the bosom of which
the tender green foliage, with the deep blue heavens between,
gleamed so wondrously upon him. His sorrow was all forgotten, and
even the echo of the discord in his little heart was hushed. That
heart was once more in his eyes; and fain would he have drunk in the
soft beauty of the colours that lay beneath him, or have plunged
into the lovely deep.

Then the breeze began to sigh among the treetops. The Child raised
his eyes and saw overhead the quivering green, and the deep blue
behind it, and he knew not whether he were waking or dreaming:
which were the real leaves and the real heaven--those in the depths
above or in the depths beneath? Long did the Child waver, and his
thoughts floated in a delicious dreaminess from one to the other,
till the Dragon-fly flew to him in affectionate haste, and with
rustling wings greeted her kind host. The Child returned her
greeting, and was glad to meet an acquaintance with whom he could
share the rich feast of his joy. But first he asked the Dragon-fly
if she could decide for him between the Upper and the Nether--the
height and the depth? The Dragon-fly flew above, and beneath, and
around; but the Water spake:- "The foliage and the sky above are not
the true ones: the leaves wither and fall; the sky is often
overcast, and sometimes quite dark." Then the Leaves and the Sky
said, "The water only apes us; it must change its pictures at our
pleasure, and can retain none." Then the Dragon-fly remarked that
the height and the depth existed only in the eyes of the Child, and