And even as Mr. Pericles was protesting that he was the most mystified of the company, his neck lengthened, and his head went round, and his ear was turned to the sky, while he breathed an elaborate “Ah!” And sure enough that was the voice of the woods, cleaving the night air, not distant.  A sleepy fire of early moonlight hung through the dusky fir-branches.  The voice had the woods to itself, and seemed to fill them and soar over them, it was so full and rich, so light and sweet.  And now, to add to the marvel, they heard a harp accompaniment, the strings being faintly touched, but with firm fingers.  A woman’s voice:  on that could be no dispute.  Tell me, what opens heaven more flamingly to heart and mind, than the voice of a woman, pouring clear accordant notes to the blue night sky, that grows light blue to the moon?  There was no flourish in her singing.  All the notes were firm, and rounded, and sovereignly distinct.  She seemed to have caught the ear of Night, and sang confident of her charm.  It was a grand old Italian air, requiring severity of tone and power.  Now into great mournful hollows the voice sank steadfastly.  One soft sweep of the strings succeeded a deep final note, and the hearers breathed freely.

“Stradella!” said the Greek, folding his arms.

The ladies were too deeply impressed to pursue their play with him.  Real emotions at once set aside the semi-credence they had given to their own suggestions.

“Hush! she will sing again,” whispered Adela.  “It is the most delicious contralto.”  Murmurs of objection to the voice being characterized at all by any technical word, or even for a human quality, were heard.

“Let me find zis woman!” cried the prose enthusiast Mr. Pericles, imperiously, with his bearskin thrown back on his shoulders, and forth they stepped, following him.

In the middle of the wood there was a sandy mound, rising half the height of the lesser firs, bounded by a green-grown vallum, where once an old woman, hopelessly a witch, had squatted, and defied the authorities to make her budge:  nor could they accomplish the task before her witch-soul had taken wing in the form of a black night-bird, often to be heard jarring above the spot.  Lank dry weeds and nettles, and great lumps of green and gray moss, now stood on the poor old creature’s place of habitation, and the moon, slanting through the fir-clumps, was scattered on the blossoms of twisted orchard-trees, gone wild again.  Amid this desolation, a dwarfed pine, whose roots were partially bared as they grasped the broken bank that was its perch, threw far out a cedar-like hand.  In the shadow of it sat the fair singer.  A musing touch of her harp-strings drew the intruders to the charmed circle, though they could discern nothing save the glimmer of the instrument and one set of fingers caressing it.  How she viewed their rather impertinent advance toward her, till they had ranged in a half-circle nearer and nearer, could not be guessed.  She did not seem abashed in any way, for, having preluded, she threw herself into another song.