One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something that every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully still; she went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from the peak.  Of a sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that made it to look as if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and thought it was Apo calling “Yillah!  Yillah!” But now it seemed like the voice she had heard while bathing in the pool.  Glancing upward, she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an inaccessible crag.  But presently, there was a rustling in the groves behind, and swift as thought, something darted through the air.  The youth bounded forward.  Yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he fell upon the cliff, and was seen no more.  As alarmed, and in tears, she fled from the scene, some one out of sight ran before her through the wood.

Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she had seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that Apo had slain him.

The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape from her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest and the phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings, in regions beyond Ardair.  But Aleema sought to put away these conceits; saying, that ere long she would be journeying to Oroolia, there to rejoin the spirits she dimly remembered.

Soon after, he came to her with a shell—­one of those ever moaning of ocean—­and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within, which in that little shell had voyaged from Oroolia to bear her company in Amma.

Now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes, listened and listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were born of the sound, and her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight.

And again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a bill jet-black, and eyes like stars.  “In this, lurks the soul of a maiden; it hath flown from Oroolia to greet you.”  The soft stranger willingly nestled in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers, and softly warbling.

Many days passed; and Yillah, the bird, and the shell were inseparable.  The bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth; perched upon her shoulder, and sang in her ear; and at night, folded its wings in her bosom, and, like a sea-fowl, went softly to sleep:  rising and falling upon the maiden’s heart.  And every morning it flew from its nest, and fluttered and chirped; and sailed to and fro; and blithely sang; and brushed Yillah’s cheek till she woke.  Then came to her hand:  and Yillah, looking earnestly in its eyes, saw strange faces there; and said to herself as she gazed—­“These are two souls, not one.”

But at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly flew from her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its white downy throat, there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet, like a little fountain in air.  Now the song ceased; when up and away toward the head of the vale, flew the bird.  “Lil!  Lil! come back, leave me not, blest souls of the maidens.”  But on flew the bird, far up a defile, winging its way till a speck.