set about her labors, like a careful housewife, to clear the fountain of withered leaves, and bits of slimy wood, and old acorns from the oaks above, and grains of corn left by cattle in drinking, till the bright sand in the bright water were like a treasury of diamonds.  But, should the intruder approach too near, he would find only the drops of a summer shower glistening about the spot where he had seen her.

Reclining on the border of grass where the dewy goddess should have been, I bent forward, and a pair of eyes met mine within the watery mirror.  They were the reflection of my own.  I looked again, and, lo! another face, deeper in the fountain than my own image, more distinct in all the features, yet faint as thought.  The vision had the aspect of a fair young girl with locks of paly gold.  A mirthful expression laughed in the eyes and dimpled over the whole shadowy countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain would be if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine, it should assume the shape of woman.  Through the dim rosiness of the cheeks I could see the brown leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns and the sparkling sand.  The solitary sunbeam was diffused among the golden hair, which melted into its faint brightness and became a glory round that head so beautiful.

My description can give no idea how suddenly the fountain was thus tenanted and how soon it was left desolate.  I breathed, and there was the face; I held my breath, and it was gone.  Had it passed away or faded into nothing?  I doubted whether it had ever been.

My sweet readers, what a dreamy and delicious hour did I spend where that vision found and left me!  For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it away.  Thus have I often started from a pleasant dream, and then kept quiet in hopes to wile it back.  Deep were my musings as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being.  Had I created her?  Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children’s eyes?  And did her beauty gladden me for that one moment and then die?  Or was she a water-nymph within the fountain, or fairy or woodland goddess peeping over my shoulder, or the ghost of some forsaken maid who had drowned herself for love?  Or, in good truth, had a lovely girl with a warm heart and lips that would bear pressure stolen softly behind me and thrown her image into the spring?

I watched and waited, but no vision came again.  I departed, but with a spell upon me which drew me back that same afternoon to the haunted spring.  There was the water gushing, the sand sparkling and the sunbeam glimmering.  There the vision was not, but only a great frog, the hermit of that solitude, who immediately withdrew his speckled snout and made himself invisible—­all except a pair of long legs—­beneath a stone.  Methought he had a devilish look.  I could have slain him as an enchanter who kept the mysterious beauty imprisoned in the fountain.