, a mild radiant night of late April. There
were sheep at graze there, for though it was darkish under the
three-quarter moon, I was used to the dark, and could see them, a
woolly mass, quietly feeding close together. I saw no shepherd
anywhere; but I remember that his dog sat on his haunches apart,
watching them. He was prick-eared, bright-eyed; he grinned and panted
intensely. I didn't then know why he was so excited, but very soon I
did.

I became aware, gradually, that a woman stood among the sheep. She had
not been there when I first saw them, I am sure; nor did I see her
approach them or enter their school. Yet there she was in the midst of
them, seen now by me as she had evidently been seen for some time by
the dog, seen, I suppose, by the sheep--at any rate she stood in the
midst of them, as I say, with her hand actually upon the shoulder of
one of them--but not feared or doubted by any soul of us. The dog was
vividly interested, but did not budge; the sheep went on feeding; I
stood bolt upright, watching.

I knew her the moment I saw her. She was the exquisitely formed, slim
and glowing creature I had seen before, when she launched herself into
the night as a God of Homer--Hermes or Thetis--launched out from
Olympus' top into the sea--"[Greek: ex aitheros empese ponto]," and
words fail me to describe the perfection of her being, a radiant
simulacrum of our own, the inconscient self-sufficiency, the buoyancy
and freedom which she showed me. You may sometimes see boys at their
maddest tip of expectation stand waiting as she now stood, quivering
on the extreme edge of adventure; yet even in their case there is a
consciousness of well being, a kind of rolling of anticipation upon
the palate, a getting of the flavours beforehand. That involves a
certain dissipation of activity; but here all was concentrated. The
whole nature of the creature was strung to one issue only, to that
point when she could fling headlong into activity--an activity in
which every fibre and faculty would be used. A comparison of the
fairy-kind with human beings is never successful, because into our
images of human beings we always import self-consciousness. They know
what they are doing. Fairies do not. But wait a moment; there is a
reason. Human creatures, I think, know what they are doing only too
well, because performance never agrees with desire. They know what
they are doing because it is never exactly what they meant to do, or
what t