the motion of a cloud of mist which changes its form and place,
yet to the eye seems not to have moved--she rose to her knees, to
her feet, retired, and with face still towards me, and eyes fixed
on mine, finally disappeared, going as if she had melted away
into the verdure. The leafage was there occupying the precise
spot where she had been a moment before--the feathery foliage of
an acacia shrub, and stems and broad, arrow-shaped leaves of an
aquatic plant, and slim, drooping fern fronds, and they were
motionless and seemed not to have been touched by something
passing through them. She had gone, yet I continued still, bent
almost double, gazing fixedly at the spot where I had last seen
her, my mind in a strange condition, possessed by sensations
which were keenly felt and yet contradictory. So vivid was the
image left on my brain that she still seemed to be actually
before my eyes; and she was not there, nor had been, for it was a
dream, an illusion, and no such being existed, or could exist, in
this gross world; and at the same time I knew that she had been
there--that imagination was powerless to conjure up a form so
exquisite.

With the mental image I had to be satisfied, for although I
remained for some hours at that spot, I saw her no more, nor did
I hear any familiar melodious sound. For I was now convinced
that in this wild solitary girl I had at length discovered the
mysterious warbler that so often followed me in the wood. At
length, seeing that it was growing late, I took a drink from the
stream and slowly and reluctantly made my way out of the forest
and went home.

Early next day I was back in the wood full of delightful