bright cloud of butterflies,50 whose four-parted wings were light as a
spider's web and transparent as glass; when they hover in the air they are
hardly visible, and, though they hum, you fancy that they are motionless.

The girl waved in her uplifted hand a grey tassel, like a bunch of ostrich
plumes, and seemed to be protecting with it the heads of the children from
the golden rain of the butterflies--in her other hand shone something
horn-like and gilded, apparently an instrument for feeding children, for
she approached it to each child in turn; it was formed like the golden
horn of Amalthea.

Even though thus engaged she turned her head towards the gooseberry
bushes, mindful of the rustling she had heard among them, and not knowing
that her assailant had already drawn near from the opposite direction,
crawling like a serpent over the borders. Suddenly he jumped out from the
burdock; she looked--he was standing near at hand, four beds away from her,
and was bowing low. She had already turned away her head and lifted her
arms, and was hurrying to fly away like a frightened lark, and already her
light steps were brushing over the leaves, when the children, frightened
by the entrance of the stranger, and the flight of the girl, began to wail
piteously. She heard them, and felt that it was unseemly to desert little
children in their fright; she went back, hesitating, but she must needs go
back, like an unwilling spirit, summoned by the incantations of a diviner.
She ran up to divert the child that was shrieking the loudest, sat down by
him on the ground, and clasped him to her bosom; the others she soothed
with her hand and with tender words until they became calm, hugging her
knees with their little arms and snuggling their heads, like chickens
beneath their mother's wing. "Is it nice to cry so?" she said, "is it
polite? This gentleman will be afraid of you; he did not come to frighten
you, he is not an ugly old beggar; he is a guest, a kind gentleman, just
see how pretty he is."

She looked herself; the Count smiled pleasantly, and was evidently
grateful to her for so many praises. She noticed this, and stopped,
lowered her eyes, and blushed all over like a rosebud.

He was really a handsome gentleman; of tall stature, with an oval face,
fair and with rosy cheeks; he had mild blue eyes and long blonde hair. The
leaves and tufts of grass in the Count's hair, which he had torn off in
crawling over the borders, showed