own delight, and again running on she darted
through a rift between the rocks, lined with mosses and ferns, to reach
the beaten track through the woods.

Her whole soul--that wild, untrained soul of hers--was rushing with her
and impelling her onwards, kindling her countenance with a new ardour.
With her hands she clung to the ivy, with her naked feet she clung to the
projections and the crevices to push on her way.

Soon she was on the other slope, running, tripping, leaping, sometimes
stopping short to gaze upon surrounding objects--a large tree, a ravine,
a lonely sheet of water, or a pond full of flowers and sweet-smelling
water-plants.

Although she could not remember ever having seen those copses, those
clearings, those heaths, at every turn in the path she would say to
herself, "There, I knew it was so! I knew that tree would be there! I
was sure of that rock! And there's the waterfall just below!" Although
a thousand strange remembrances passed with momentary flashes, like
sudden visions, through her mind, she could not understand it all and
could explain nothing. She had not yet been able to say to herself, "What
Fritz and the rest of them want to make them happy is the village, and
the meadow, and the farm-house, and the fruit-trees, and the orchard, and
the milk-cows, and the laying hens; plenty in the cellar, plenty in the
granary, and a nice warm fire on the hearth in winter. But what have I to
do with all these things? Wasn't I born a heathen, quite a heathen? I was
born in the woods, just as the squirrel was born in an oak, just as a
hawk was hatched on the crag and the thrush in the fir-tree!"

It is true she had never thought of these things, but she was guided by
instinct; and this mysterious force drew her unconsciously about sunset
to the bare heaths of the Kohle Platz, where the gangs of gipsies that
wander between Alsace and Lorraine are accustomed to stay the night, and
hang up their kettles among the dry heath.

Here Myrtle sat down at the foot of an old oak-tree, tired, footsore, and
ragged; and here she long sat motionless, gazing into vacant space,
listening to the rustling of the wind amongst the tall fir-trees, happy,
and feeling herself quite alone in the wide solitude.

Night came. The stars broke out by thousands in the purple depths of the
autumn sky. The moon rose and silvered with soft light the white stems of
the birch-trees, which hung in graceful groups along the mountain sides