I endeavored to track the steps, but they only passed for a few paces along
the fine sand, and then were lost among the herbage. I remained gazing in
reverie upon this passing trace of loveliness. It evidently was not made by
any of my sisters, for they knew nothing of this haunt; besides, the foot
was smaller than theirs; it was remarkable for its beautiful delicacy.

My eye accidentally caught two or three half-withered wild flowers lying on
the ground. The unknown nymph had doubtless dropped them from her bosom!
Here was a new document of taste and sentiment. I treasured them up as
invaluable relics. The place, too, where I found them, was remarkably
picturesque, and the most beautiful part of the brook. It was overhung with
a fine elm, entwined with grapevines. She who could select such a spot, who
could delight in wild brooks, and wild flowers, and silent solitudes, must
have fancy, and feeling, and tenderness; and with all these qualities, she
must be beautiful!

But who could be this Unknown, that had thus passed by, as in a morning
dream, leaving merely flowers and fairy footsteps to tell of her
loveliness? There was a mystery in it that bewildered me. It was so vague
and disembodied, like those "airy tongues that syllable men's names" in
solitude. Every attempt to solve the mystery was vain. I could hear of no
being in the neighborhood to whom this trace could be ascribed. I haunted
the spot, and became daily more and more enamored. Never, surely, was
passion more pure and spiritual, and never lover in more dubious situation.
My case could be compared only to that of the amorous prince in the fairy
tale of Cinderella; but he had a glass slipper on which to lavish his
tenderness. I, alas! was in love with a footstep!

The imagination is alternately a cheat and a dupe; nay, more, it is the