le cloud, sinking gradually
beneath a golden sea. At other times he threw out crimson glories, tore
his vaporous robe to shreds, and set amidst wavy flames that streaked
the skies like the tails of gigantic comets, whose radiant heads lit up
the crests of the forest trees. Then, again, extinguishing his rays
one by one, he would softly sink to rest on shores of ruddy sand,
far-reaching banks of blushing coral; and then, some other night, he
would glide away demurely behind a heavy cloud that figured the grey
hangings of some alcove, through which the eye could only detect a spark
like that of a night-light. Or else he would rush to his couch in
a tumult of passion, rolled round with white forms which gradually
crimsoned beneath his fiery embraces, and finally disappeared with him
below the horizon in a confused chaos of gleaming, struggling limbs.

It was only the plants which had not made their submission. Albine and
Serge passed like monarchs through the kingdom of animals, who rendered
them humble and loyal obeisance. When they crossed the parterre, flights
of butterflies arose to delight their eyes, to fan them with quivering
wings, and to follow in their train like living sunbeams or flying
blossoms. In the orchard, they were greeted by the birds that banqueted
in the fruit-trees. The sparrows, the chaffinches, the golden orioles,
the bullfinches, showed them the ripest fruit scarred by their hungry
beaks; and while they sat astride the branches and breakfasted, birds
twittered and sported round them like children at play, and even
purloined the fruit beneath their very feet. Albine found even more
amusement in the meadows, where she caught the little green frogs
with eyes of gold, that lay squatting amongst the reeds, absorbed in
contemplation; while Serge, with a piece of straw, poked the crickets
out of their hiding-places, or tickled the grasshoppers to make them
sing. He picked up insects of all colours, blue ones, red ones, yellow
ones, and set them creeping upon his sleeve, where they gleamed and
glittered like buttons of sapphire and ruby and topaz.

Then there was all the mysterious life of the streams; the grey-backed
fishes that threaded the dim waters, the eels whose presence was
betrayed by a slight quivering of the water-plants, the young fry, which
dispersed like blackish sand at the slightest sound, the long-legged
flies and the water-beetles that ruffled into circling silvery ripples
the stagnant