surely along the
alder fringe, exploring the dim green haunts of frog and water-hen, stoat
and becassine--a slim, wet dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled
shadow.

Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse Wood, there is a hill set thick
with hazel and clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and numerous
rabbits and pheasants.

She was close to its base, now, gliding through the shade like some lithe
creature of the forest; making no sound save where the current curled
around her supple body in twisted necklaces of liquid light.

Then, as she stood, peering cautiously through tangled branches for a
glimpse of the little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up on the
hill--an inexplicable sound like metal striking stone.

She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came the distant sound. Then all
was still. But presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant, crouching low
with flattened neck outstretched, run like a huge rat through the hazel
growth, out across the meadow.

She remained motionless, scarcely daring to draw her breath. Somebody had
passed over the hill--if, indeed, he or she had actually continued on
their mysterious way. Had they? But finally the intense quiet reassured
her, and she concluded that whoever had made that metallic sound had
continued on toward Sainte Lesse Wood.

She had taken with her a cake of soap. Now, here in the green shade, she
made her ablutions, soaping herself from head to foot, turning her head
leisurely from time to time to survey her leafy environment, or watch the
flight of some tiny woodland bird, or study with pretty and speculative
eyes the soap-suds swirling in a dimpled whirlpool around her thighs.

The bubbles fascinated her; she played with them, capriciously, touching
one here, one there, with tentative finger to see them explode in a tiny
rainbow shower.

Finally she chose a hollow stem from among a cluster of scented rushes,
cleared it with a vigorous breath, soaped one end, and, touching it to the
water, blew from it a prodigious bubble, all swimming with gold and purple
hues.

Into the air she tossed it, from the end of the hollow reed; the breeze
caught it and wafted it upward until it burst.

_Then a strange thing happened!_ Before her upturned eyes another bubble
slowly arose from a clump of aspens out of the hazel thickets on the
hill--a big, pearl-tinted, translucent bubble, as large as a melon. Upward
it floated, slowly ascending to the tree-tops. T