not seek to avoid it. There I was overstanding her and her
offspring; and what was must be.

Of the little one I could not see much. It was on its side in the
fern, fast asleep. Its arms were stretched up the slope, its face was
between them. Its knees were bent and a little foot tucked up to touch
its body. Quite naked, brown all over, it was as plump and smooth and
tender as a little pig. But it was not pink; it was very brown.

All nature seemed at the top of perfection that wonderful day. A hawk
soared high in the blue, bees murmured all about, the distance
quivered. I could see under the leaves of a great mullein the bright
eyes, then the round body of a mouse. Afar off the corn-cutter rattled
and whirred, and above us on the ridgeway some workmen sat at their
dinner under the telegraph wires. Men were all about us at their
affairs with Nature's face; and here stood I, a man of themselves, and
at my feet the Oread lay at ease and watched her young. There was food
for wonder in all this, but none for doubt. Who knows what his
neighbour sees? Who knows what his dog? Every species of us walks
secret from the others; every species of us the centre of his
universe, its staple of measure, and its final cause. And if at times
one is granted a peep into new heavens and a new earth, and can get no
more, perhaps the best thing we win from that is the conviction that
we must doubt nothing and wonder at everything. Here, now, was I,
common, blundering, trampling, make-shift man, peering upon my
Oread--fairy of the hill, whatever she was--and tempted to gauge her
by my man-taught balances of right and wrong, and use and wont. Was
that young male who had sheltered her in the snow her mate in truth,
the father of her young one? Or what sort of mating had been hers?
What wild love? What mysteries of the night? And where was he now? And
was he one, or were they many, who companioned this beautiful thing?
And would he come if I waited for him? And would he share her watch,
her quiet content, her still rapture?

Idle, man-made questions, custom-taught! I did wait. I sat by her
waiting. But he did not come.

IV

A month later, in October, I saw a great assembling of Oreads, by
which I was able to connect more than one experience. I could now
understand the phenomenon of the luminous ring.

I reached the valley by about six o'clock in the evening. It was
twilight, not yet dusk. The sun was off the hollow, which lay in blue
mi