he made up her mind that this place should be her bed-chamber. So she
took saddle and bridle off the horse, as he must needs bite the grass,
and then when she had eaten the other half of her bread, she laid her
down on the green grass, with her head on the saddle, and when she had
lain listening to the horse cropping the grass close anigh her for
a minute or two, she fell fast asleep, and lay there long and had no
dreams.

CHAPTER XVI. WHAT GOLDILIND FOUND IN THE WOOD.

When she awoke it was broad day and bright sun, and she rose up to her
feet and looked about, and saw the horse standing close by, and sharing
the shade with her, whisking his tail about lazily. Then she turned,
and saw the stream rippling out from the pool over the clean gravel, and
here and there a fish darting through the ripple, or making clean rings
on the pool as he quietly took a fly; the sky was blue and clear, there
was scarce a breath of air, and the morning was already hot; no worse
than yesterday sang the birds in the bushes; but as she looked across
the river, where, forsooth, the alders grew thick about the pool's edge,
a cock blackbird, and then another, flew out from the close boughs,
where they had been singing to their mates, with the sharp cry that they
use when they are frighted. Withal she saw the bush move, though, as
aforesaid, the morning was without wind. She had just stooped to do off
her foot-gear (for she was minded to bathe again), but now she stopped
with one shoe in her hand, and looked on the bushes keenly with beating
heart, and again she thought she saw the boughs shaken, and stood, not
daring to move a while; but they moved no more now when she had looked
steadily at them a space, and again a blackbird began singing loud just
where they had been shaken. So she gathered heart again, and presently
turned her hand once more to stripping her raiment off her, for she
would not be baulked of her bath; but when the stripping was done,
she loitered not naked on the bank as she had done the day before, but
walked swiftly into the shallow, and thence down into the pool, till
nothing but her head and the whiteness of her shoulders showed over the
dark water. Even then she turned her head about twice to look into the
over-side bushes, but when she saw nothing stir there she began to play
in the water, but not for long, but came splashing through the shallow
and hurried on her raiment.

When she was clad again she went up