; the grass too, short as it was, and the whole
winding staircase of the brook's course, began to wear a solemn
freshness of appearance. And this slow transfiguration reached her
heart, and played upon it, and transpierced it with a serious thrill.
She looked all about; the whole face of nature looked back, brimful of
meaning, finger on lip, leaking its glad secret. She looked up. Heaven
was almost emptied of stars. Such as still lingered shone with a changed
and waning brightness, and began to faint in their stations. And the
colour of the sky itself was the most wonderful; for the rich blue of
the night had now melted and softened and brightened; and there had
succeeded in its place a hue that has no name, and that is never seen
but as the herald of morning. "O!" she cried, joy catching at her voice,
"O! it is the dawn!"

In a breath she passed over the brook, and looped up her skirts and
fairly ran in the dim alleys. As she ran, her ears were aware of many
pipings, more beautiful than music; in the small dish-shaped houses in
the fork of giant arms, where they had lain all night, lover by lover,
warmly pressed, the bright-eyed, big-hearted singers began to awaken for
the day. Her heart melted and flowed forth to them in kindness. And
they, from their small and high perches in the clerestories of the wood
cathedral, peered down sidelong at the ragged Princess as she flitted
below them on the carpet of the moss and tassel.

Soon she had struggled to a certain hill-top, and saw far before her the
silent inflooding of the day. Out of the East it welled and whitened;
the darkness trembled into light; and the stars were extinguished like
the street-lamps of a human city. The whiteness brightened into silver,
the silver warmed into gold, the gold kindled into pure and living fire;
and the face of the East was barred with elemental scarlet. The day drew
its first long breath, steady and chill; and for leagues around the
woods sighed and shivered. And then, at one bound, the sun had floated
up; and her startled eyes received day's first arrow, and quailed under
the buffet. On every side, the shadows leaped from their ambush and fell
prone. The day was come, plain and garish; and up the steep and solitary
eastern heaven, the sun, victorious over his competitors, continued
slowly and royally to mount.

Seraphina drooped for a little, leaning on a pine, the shrill joy of the
woodlands mocking her. The shelter of the night, the