Awakening, like our forefather, from the deep sleep of childish things, the boy finds a being by his side of a strange hushing fairness, as though in the night he had opened his eyes and found an angel by his bed.  Speech he has not at all, and his glance dare not rise beyond her bosom; till, the presence seeming gracious, he dares at length stretch out his hand and touch her gown; whereon an inexplicable new joy trembles through him, as though he stood naked in a May meadow through the golden rain of a summer shower.  Should her fingers touch his arm by chance, it is as though they swept a harp, and a music of piercing sweetness runs with a sudden cry along his blood.  But by and by he comes to learn that he has made a comical mistake about this wonder.  With his head bent low in worship, he had not seen the wistfulness of her gaze on him; and one day, lo! it is she who presses close to him with the timid appeal of a fawn.  Indeed, she has all this time been to him as some beautiful woodland creature might have seemed, breaking for the first time upon the sight of primitive man.  Fear, wonder inexpressible, worship, till a sudden laughing thought of comprehension, then a lordly protectiveness, and, after that—­the hunt!  At once the masculine self-respect returns, and the wonder, though no less sweet in itself, becomes but another form of tribute.

With Narcissus this evolution had taken place early:  it was very long ago—­he felt old even then to think of it—­since Hesperus had sung like a nightingale above his first kiss, and his memory counted many trophies of lordship.  But, surely, this last was of all the starriest; perhaps, indeed, so wonderful was it, it might prove the very love which would bring back again the dream that had seemed lost for ever with the passing of that mythical first maid so long ago, a love in which worship should be all once more, and godship none at all.  But is not such a question all too certainly its own answer?  Nay, Narcissus, if indeed you find that wonder-maid again, you will not question so; you will forget to watch that graceful shadow in the moonlight; you will but ask to sit by her silent, as of old, to follow her to the end of the world.  Ah me!

  ’How many queens have ruled and passed
    Since first we met;
    How thick and fast
  The letters used to come at first,
    How thin at last;
  Then ceased, and winter for a space! 
    Until another hand
    Brought spring into the land,
  And went the seasons’ pace.’

That Miller’s Daughter, although ‘so dear, so dear,’ why, of course, she was not that maid:  but again the silver halo has grown about her; again Narcissus asks himself, ‘Did she live, or did I dream?’; again she comes to him at whiles, wafted on that strange incense, and clothed about in that mystical lustre of pearl.

Doubtless, she lives in that fabled country still:  but Narcissus has grown sadly wise since then, and he goes on pilgrimage no more.