t narrow isles of sky were visible
between the branches lay sunless and still. Yet already, on a mantled
pool we journeyed softly by, the waterlily was unfolding, the swan
afloat in beauty.

In a dim, still light we at last slowly descended out of the darker
glade into a garden of grey terraces and flowerless walks. Even
Rosinante seemed perturbed by the stillness and solitude of this wild
garden. She trod with cautious foot and peering eye the green,
rainworn paths, that led us down presently to where beneath the vault
of its trees a river flowed.

Surely I could not be mistaken that here a voice was singing as if out
of the black water-deeps, so clear and hollow were the notes. I burst
through the knotted stalks of the ivy, and stooping like some poor
travesty of Narcissus, with shaded face pierced down deep--deep into
eyes not my own, but violet and unendurable and strange--eyes of the
living water-sprite drawing my wits from me, stilling my heart, till I
was very near plunging into that crystal oblivion, to be fishes
evermore.

But my fingers still grasped my friend's kind elf-locks, and her
goose-nose brooded beside mine upon that water of undivulged delight.
Out of the restless silence of the stream floated this long-drawn
singing:

Pilgrim forget; in this dark tide
Sinks the salt tear to peace at last;
Here undeluding dreams abide,
All sorrow past.

Nods the wild ivy on her stem;
The voiceless bird broods on the bough;
The silence and the song of them
Untroubled now.

Free that poor captive's flutterings,
That struggles in thy tired eyes,
Solace its discontented wings,
Quiet its cries!

Knells now the dewdrop to its fall,
The sad wind sleeps no more to rove;
Rest, for my arms ambrosial
Ache for thy love!

I cannot think how one so meekened with hunger as I, resisted that
water-troubled hair, eyes that yet haunt me, that heart-alluring
voice.

"No, no," I said faintly, and the words of Anthea came unbidden to
mind, "to sleep--oh! who would forget? You plead merely with some old
dream of me--not _all_ me, you know. Gold is but witchcraft. And as
for sorrow--spread me a magical table in this nettle-garden, I'll
leave all melancholy!"

I must indeed have been exhausted to chop logic with a water-witch. As
well argue with minnows, entreat the rustling of ivy-leaves. It was
Rosinante, wearying, I suppose, of the reflect