It is of necessity that a story such as this should be episodical,
lapsical, disconnected. Its inception lies in two countries, and of
different people. And it is, in its beginnings, a story of contrasts. So
one may be permitted again to say: At a time when pompous, ponderous,
white-whiskered, black-suited old Dr. DeLancey was engaged in bringing to
the daughter of Kathryn Blair a posthumous baby brother that, in the
mystery of things, turned out after all to be a sister, a stranger
chanced to be riding at dusk through the deep shades of the Bois du Nord,
in Brittany. The path was overhung with spreading boughs; it was tumbled
with the wood-litter of a decade. His horse went slowly, lifting each
forefoot daintily and placing it carefully. And the stranger permitted
the animal to take its own time.

At length he came to a turning. The huge bole of a great oak was at his
left. He rounded it. His horse raised its head, nostrils distended, eyes
alert, and stopped.

The stranger looked up. It was a strange picture that met his eyes....

At first he did not believe that that which he saw was human. It seemed
like some nymph of the wood; for there are nymphs in the Bois du Nord,
you know, many of them. Anyone who lives there will tell you that.

But then his eyes fell upon a tumbled heap of clothing; and he knew that
it was not a nymph, after all. For nymphs do not wear clothing.

There was a little woodland pool before him. The sun, straining through
the great, heavy-leafed boughs, specked it with blots and blotches of
gold. Beside it there sat the figure of a girl, naked. She sat there, her