d the pines themselves, whose
roots made promontories, looked down silently on their green images. She
crept to the margin and beheld herself with wonder, a hollow and
bright-eyed phantom, in the ruins of her palace robe. The breeze now
shook her image; now it would be marred with flies; and at that she
smiled; and from the fading circles, her counterpart smiled back to her
and looked kind. She sat long in the warm sun, and pitied her bare arms
that were all bruised and marred with falling, and marvelled to see that
she was dirty, and could not grow to believe that she had gone so long in
such a strange disorder.

Then, with a sigh, she addressed herself to make a toilette by that
forest mirror, washed herself pure from all the stains of her adventure,
took off her jewels and wrapped them in her handkerchief, re-arranged the
tatters of her dress, and took down the folds of her hair. She shook it
round her face, and the pool repeated her thus veiled. Her hair had
smelt like violets, she remembered Otto saying; and so now she tried to
smell it, and then shook her head, and laughed a little, sadly, to
herself.

The laugh was returned upon her in a childish echo.

She looked up; and lo! two children looking on,--a small girl and a yet
smaller boy, standing, like playthings, by the pool, below a spreading
pine. Seraphina was not fond of children, and now she was startled to
the heart.

'Who are you?' she cried hoarsely.

The mites huddled together and drew back; and Seraphina's heart
reproached her that she should have frightened things so quaint and
little, and yet alive with senses. She thought upon the birds and looked
again at her two visitors; so little larger and so far more innocent. On
their clear faces, as in a pool, she saw the reflection of their fears.
With gracious purpose she arose.

'Come,' she said, 'do not be afraid of me,' and took a step towards them.

But alas! at the first moment, the two poor babes in the wood turned and
ran helter-skelter from the Princess.

The most desolate pang was struck into the girl's heart. Here she was,
twenty-two--soon twenty-three--and not a creature loved her; none but
Otto; and would even he forgive? If she began weeping in these woods
alone, it would mean death or madness. Hastily she trod the thoughts out
like a burning paper; hastily rolled up her locks, and with terror
dogging her, and her whole bosom sick with grief, resumed her journey.

Past ten