Respected Herr Receiver, Italy is a beautiful country; the
dear God takes care of every one there. You can lie on your back in
the sunshine and raisins drop into your mouth; and if a tarantula
bites you, you dance with the greatest ease, although you never
in your life before learned to dance." "Ay, to Italy! to Italy!" I
shouted with delight, and, heedless of any choice of roads, hurried on
along the first that came.

After I had gone a little way I saw on the right a most beautiful
orchard, with the morning sun shimmering on the trunks and through the
tree-tops so brilliantly that it looked as if the ground were spread
with golden rugs. As no one was in sight, I clambered over the low
fence and lay down comfortably on the grass under an apple-tree;
all my limbs were still aching from camping out in the tree on the
previous night. From where I lay I could see far abroad over the
country, and as it was Sunday the sound of the church-bells from
the far distance came to me over the quiet fields, and gaily-dressed
peasants were walking across the meadows and along the lanes to
church. I was glad at heart; the birds sang in the tree overhead;
I thought of my father's mill, and of the garden of the lovely Lady
fair, and of how far, far away it all was--until I fell sound asleep.
I dreamed that the Lady fair came walking, or rather slowly flying,
toward me from the lovely landscape to the music of the church-bells,
in long white robes that waved in the rosy morning. Then again
it seemed that we were not in a strange country, but in my native
village, in the deep shade beside the mill. But everything was still
and deserted, as it is when the people are all gone to church and only
the solemn sounds of the organ wafted down through the trees break the
stillness; I was oppressed with melancholy. But the Lady fair was very
kind and gentle, and put her hand in mine and walked along with me,
and sang, amid this solitude, the beautiful song that she used to
sing to her guitar early in the morning at her open window, and in the
placid mill-pool I saw her image, lovelier even than herself, except
that the eyes were wondrous large and looked at me so strangely that
I was almost afraid. Then suddenly the mill-wheel began to turn, at
first slowly, then faster and more noisily; the pool became dark and
troubled, the Lady fair turned very pale, and her robes grew longer
and longer, and fluttered wildly in long strips like pennons of
mist u