took
off her jewels and wrapped them in her handkerchief, re-arranged the
tatters of her dress, and took down the folds of her hair. She shook it
round her face, and the pool repeated her thus veiled. Her hair had
smelt like violets, she remembered Otto saying; and so now she tried to
smell it, and then shook her head, and laughed a little, sadly, to
herself.

The laugh was returned upon her in a childish echo. She looked up; and
lo! two children looking on,--a small girl and a yet smaller boy,
standing, like playthings, by the pool, below a spreading pine.
Seraphina was not fond of children, and now she was startled to the
heart.

"Who are you?" she cried hoarsely.

The mites huddled together and drew back; and Seraphina's heart
reproached her that she should have frightened things so quaint and
little, and yet alive with senses. She thought upon the birds and looked
again at her two visitors; so little larger and so far more innocent. On
their clear faces, as in a pool, she saw the reflection of their fears.
With gracious purpose she arose.

"Come," she said, "do not be afraid of me," and took a step towards
them.

But alas! at the first moment the two poor babes in the wood turned and
ran helter-skelter from the Princess.

The most desolate pang was struck into the girl's heart. Here she was,
twenty-two--soon twenty-three--and not a creature loved her; none but
Otto; and would even he forgive? If she began weeping in these woods
alone, it would mean death or madness. Hastily she trod the thoughts out
like a burning paper; hastily rolled up her locks, and with terror
dogging her, and her whole bosom sick with grief, resumed her journey.

Past ten in the forenoon, she struck a high-road, marching in that place
uphill between two stately groves, a river of sunlight; and here, dead
weary, careless of consequences, and taking some courage from the human
and civilised neighbourhood of the road, she stretched herself on the
green margin in the shadow of a tree. Sleep closed on her, at first
with a horror of fainting, but when she ceased to struggle, kindly
embracing her. So she was taken home for a little, from all her toils
and sorrows, to her Father's arms. And there in the meanwhile her body
lay exposed by the highwayside, in tattered finery; and on either hand
from the woods the birds came flying by and calling upon others, and
debated in their own tongue this strange appearance.

The sun pursued his journey