y the interlacing of two
trees, one with glossy evergreen leaves, the other yellow with the tints
of autumn. Vines had clambered to the top, and hung in light festoons
from the branches. The foliage, fluttering in a gentle breeze, caused
successive ripples of sun-flecks, which chased each other over trunks
and boughs, and joined in wayward dance with the shadows on the ground.

Arrested by this unusual combination of light and shade, color and form,
the young man stood still for a moment to gaze upon it. He was thinking
to himself that nothing could add to the perfection of its beauty, when
suddenly there came dancing under the arch a figure that seemed like the
fairy of those woods, a spirit of the mosses and the vines. She was a
child, apparently five or six years old, with large brown eyes, and a
profusion of dark hair. Her gypsy hat, ornamented with scarlet ribbons
and a garland of red holly-berries, had fallen back on her shoulders,
and her cheeks were flushed with exercise. A pretty little white dog was
with her, leaping up eagerly for a cluster of holly-berries which she
playfully shook above his head. She whirled swiftly round and round the
frisking animal, her long red ribbons flying on the breeze, and then she
paused, all aglow, swaying herself back and forth, like a flower on its
stem. A flock of doves, as if attracted toward her, came swooping down
from the sky, revolving in graceful curves above her head, their white
breasts glistening in the sunshine. The aerial movements of the child
were so full of life and joy, she was so in harmony with the golden day,
the waving vines, and the circling doves, that the whole scene seemed
like an allegro movement in music, and she a charming little melody
floating through it all.

Alfred stood like one enchanted. He feared to speak or move, lest the
fairy should vanish from mortal presence. So the child and the dog,
equally unconscious of a witness, continued their graceful gambols for
several minutes. An older man might have inwardly moralized on the folly
of the animal, aping humanity in thus earnestly striving after what
would yield no nourishment when obtained. But Alfred was too young and
too happy to moralize. The present moment was all-sufficient for him,
and stood still there in its fulness, unconnected with past or future.
This might have lasted long, had not the child been attracted by the
dove-shadows, and, looking up to watch the flight of the birds, her eye