prevailing colour. This tint I presently attributed to the effect of
the sunlight falling on her through the green foliage; for once, for a
moment, she raised herself to reach her finger nearer to the bird, and
then a gleam of unsubdued sunlight fell on her hair and arm, and the arm
at that moment appeared of a pearly whiteness, and the hair, just
where the light touched it, had a strange lustre and play of iridescent
colour.

I had not been watching her more than three seconds before the bird,
with a sharp, creaking little chirp, flew up and away in sudden alarm;
at the same moment she turned and saw me through the light leafy screen.
But although catching sight of me thus suddenly, she did not exhibit
alarm like the bird; only her eyes, wide open, with a surprised look
in them, remained immovably fixed on my face. And then slowly,
imperceptibly--for I did not notice the actual movement, so gradual and
smooth it was, like the motion of a cloud of mist which changes its
form and place, yet to the eye seems not to have moved--she rose to her
knees, to her feet, retired, and with face still towards me, and eyes
fixed on mine, finally disappeared, going as if she had melted away into
the verdure. The leafage was there occupying the precise spot where she
had been a moment before--the feathery foliage of an acacia shrub, and
stems and broad, arrow-shaped leaves of an aquatic plant, and slim,
drooping fern fronds, and they were motionless and seemed not to have
been touched by something passing through them. She had gone, yet I
continued still, bent almost double, gazing fixedly at the spot where
I had last seen her, my mind in a strange condition, possessed by
sensations which were keenly felt and yet contradictory. So vivid was
the image left on my brain that she still seemed to be actually before
my eyes; and she was not there, nor had been, for it was a dream, an
illusion, and no such being existed, or could exist, in this gross
world; and at the same time I knew that she had been there--that
imagination was powerless to conjure up a form so exquisite.

With the mental image I had to be satisfied, for although I remained for
some hours at that spot, I saw her no more, nor did I hear any familiar
melodious sound. For I was now convinced that in this wild solitary girl
I had at length discovered the mysterious warbler that so often followed
me in the wood. At length, seeing that it was growing late, I took a
drink from th