"you are truth itself, and you are ever kind.
I would ask of you to-night something other than the dainties of your
tea-table. If we may believe certain persons, you know amazing things;
if this be true, would it not be charitable in you to solve a few of our
doubts?"

"Ah!" she said smiling, "I walk on the clouds. I visit the depths of
the fiord; the sea is my steed and I bridle it; I know where the singing
flower grows, and the talking light descends, and fragrant colors shine!
I wear the seal of Solomon; I am a fairy; I cast my orders to the wind
which, like an abject slave, fulfils them; my eyes can pierce the earth
and behold its treasures; for lo! am I not the virgin to whom the pearls
dart from their ocean depths and--"

"--who led me safely to the summit of the Falberg?" said Minna,
interrupting her.

"Thou! thou too!" exclaimed the strange being, with a luminous glance
at the young girl which filled her soul with trouble. "Had I not the
faculty of reading through your foreheads the desires which have brought
you here, should I be what you think I am?" she said, encircling all
three with her controlling glance, to David's great satisfaction. The
old man rubbed his hands with pleasure as he left the room.

"Ah!" she resumed after a pause, "you have come, all of you, with the
curiosity of children. You, my poor Monsieur Becker, have asked yourself
how it was possible that a girl of seventeen should know even a single
one of those secrets which men of science seek with their noses to the
earth,--instead of raising their eyes to heaven. Were I to tell you how
and at what point the plant merges into the animal you would begin
to doubt your doubts. You have plotted to question me; you will admit
that?"

"Yes, dear Seraphita," answered Wilfrid; "but the desire is a natural
one to men, is it not?"

"You will bore this dear child with such topics," she said, passing her
hand lightly over Minna's hair with a caressing gesture.

The young girl raised her eyes and seemed as though she longed to lose
herself in him.

"Speech is the endowment of us all," resumed the mysterious creature,
gravely. "Woe to him who keeps silence, even in a desert, believing
that no one hears him; all voices speak and all ears listen here below.
Speech moves the universe. Monsieur Becker, I desire to say nothing
unnecessarily. I know the difficulties that beset your mind; would you
not think it a miracle if I were now to lay bare the pa