uto's torch
flared up, ran tinkling along the turf, into the glow; and her voice
broke, as she danced, into high, clear singing, triumphant singing, that
welled up to the very sky, and made the air echo with sweetness. As she
sang, all her slender form swayed to the tune, posturing, gesturing,
bending now, now almost soaring, while, falling in showers of twinkling
steps, her fleet feet seemed to weave their way on air. What ailed the
girl? all asked;--such a play of emotion of mingled sorrow and ecstasy,
never before had been interpreted by measure; so a disembodied spirit
might have danced, and her dusky hue, the strange glancing lights thrown
upon her here and there by the torch, going and coming and glittering at
pleasure, made her appear like a shadow disporting before them. At
length and slowly, note by note, with wild lingering turns to which the
movement languished, her tone fell from its lofty jubilance to a happy
flute-like humming; she waved her arms in the mimic tenderness of
repeated and passionate farewells; then, still humming, faint and low
and sweet, tripped off again, through the glow, along the turf, into the
shadow, and out of sight; and it seemed to the beholders as if a
fountain of gladness had gushed from the sod, and, playing in the light
a moment, had run away down to join the river and the breaking sea.

Mas'r Henry called after Flor to throw her a penny; but she failed to
reappear, and he tossed it to Pluto instead, and forgot about her.

* * * * *

So, bailed out and stuffed with marsh-grass in its crazy cracks, the old
scow was afloat, the rope was cut, and by midnight it went drifting down
the river. Waist-deep in shoal water, its appropriator had dragged it
round inside the channel's ledge of rocks, with their foam and
commotion, to the somewhat more placid flow below, and now it shot away
over the smooth, slippery surface of the stream, that gave back
reflections of the starbeams like a polished mirror.

Terrified by the course along the rapid river, the little creature
crouched in the bottom of the scow, now breathless as it sped along the
slope, now catching at the edge as in some chance eddy or flow it
swirled from side to side, or, spinning quite round, went down the other
way. But by-and-by gathering courage, she took her station, kneeling
where with the long poles, previously provided, she could best direct
her galley and avoid the dangers of a casta