Suddenly, the dry pine caught; the fire blazed up with a ruddy glow; and
where the darkness had been, there was she,--the Vision of the Fountain!
A spirit of radiance only, she had vanished with the rainbow, and
appeared again in the firelight, perhaps to flicker with the blaze, and
be gone. Yet, her cheek was rosy and life-like, and her features, in the
bright warmth of the room, were even sweeter and tenderer than my
recollection of them. She knew me! The mirthful expression that had
laughed in her eyes and dimpled over her countenance, when I beheld her
faint beauty in the fountain, was laughing and dimpling there now. One
moment our glance mingled,--the next, down rolled the heap of tan upon
the kindled wood,--and darkness snatched away that Daughter of the Light,
and gave her back to me no more!

Fair ladies, there is nothing more to tell. Must the simple mystery be
revealed, then, that Rachel was the daughter of the village squire, and
had left home for a boarding-school, the morning after I arrived, and
returned the day before my departure? If I transformed her to an angel,
it is what every youthful lover does for his mistress. Therein consists
the essence of my story. But slight the change, sweet maids, to make
angels of yourselves!