When Perseus had got on both of these wonderful slippers, he was altogether too buoyant to tread on earth.  Making a step or two, lo and behold! upward he popped into the air, high above the heads of Quicksilver and the Nymphs, and found it very difficult to clamber down again.  Winged slippers, and all such high-flying contrivances, are seldom quite easy to manage until one grows a little accustomed to them.  Quicksilver laughed at his companion’s involuntary activity, and told him that he must not be in so desperate a hurry, but must wait for the invisible helmet.

The good-natured Nymphs had the helmet, with its dark tuft of waving plumes, all in readiness to put upon his head.  And now there happened about as wonderful an incident as anything that I have yet told you.  The instant before the helmet was put on, there stood Perseus, a beautiful young man, with golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked sword by his side, and the brightly polished shield upon his arm—­a figure that seemed all made up of courage, sprightliness, and glorious light.  But when the helmet had descended over his white brow, there was no longer any Perseus to be seen!  Nothing but empty air!  Even the helmet, that covered him with its invisibility, had vanished!

“Where are you, Perseus?” asked Quicksilver.

“Why, here, to be sure!” answered Perseus, very quietly, although his voice seemed to come out of the transparent atmosphere.  “Just where I was a moment ago.  Don’t you see me?”

“No, indeed!” answered his friend.  “You are hidden under the helmet.  But, if I cannot see you, neither can the Gorgons.  Follow me, therefore, and we will try your dexterity in using the winged slippers.”

With these words, Quicksilver’s cap spread its wings, as if his head were about to fly away from his shoulders; but his whole figure rose lightly into the air, and Perseus followed.  By the time they had ascended a few hundred feet, the young man began to feel what a delightful thing it was to leave the dull earth so far beneath him, and to be able to flit about like a bird.

It was now deep night.  Perseus looked upward, and saw the round, bright, silvery moon, and thought that he should desire nothing better than to soar up thither, and spend his life there.  Then he looked downward again, and saw the earth, with its seas and lakes, and the silver courses of its rivers, and its snowy mountain peaks, and the breadth of its fields, and the dark cluster of its woods, and its cities of white marble; and, with the moonshine sleeping over the whole scene, it was as beautiful as the moon or any star could be.  And, among other objects, he saw the island of Seriphus, where his dear mother was.  Sometimes he and Quicksilver approached a cloud, that, at a distance, looked as if it were made of fleecy silver; although, when they plunged into it, they found themselves chilled and moistened with gray mist.  So swift was their flight, however, that, in an instant, they emerged from the cloud into the moonlight again.  Once, a high-soaring eagle flew right against the invisible Perseus.  The bravest sights were the meteors, that gleamed suddenly out, as if a bonfire had been kindled in the sky, and made the moonshine pale for as much as a hundred miles around them.