illed it with the purest
water. In a few minutes she was again at his side. She placed the
pitcher on the ground, and her two hands upon the shoulders of the
youth. In this trustful, graceful, loving posture, fixing her wondrous
eyes upon the boy, the maiden spoke.

"'And canst thou love, too?'

"He answered not; but he pressed the beauteous Auriola to his heart,
and passionately kissed her forehead. But Bolko started back
affrighted, for he had kissed a forehead colder than ice.

"'Note me well!' said she, and her voice sounded more melancholy than
before. She seated herself upon the high ledge of the spring, drew
Bolko beside her, and placed the pitcher of water between herself and
him. The butterflies stood now in the full light of the sun over the
rippling spring. A scattered few only still hovered about the moor.

"'We must tarry yet awhile,' said Auriola, 'until my heart is quite my
own again!' As she spoke, her ecstatic eyes glanced to the single
flutterers on the moor. As if caught by a magnet, they directed their
flight instantly towards the Gold Spring.

"'Now I am myself--for what is yet wanting rests in thee. Take heed!'

"Auriola now poured from the pitcher into her small left hand as much
water as this would hold, and extended the right to her companion. He,
surprised by love, encircled the maiden's waist, brought his ear close
to her delicate cheek, and watched with eagerness her strange
performance. Auriola blew at first softly, then more vehemently, into
the hollow of her hand, so that the water, bubbling up, ran to the
slender rosy fingers, and, in glittering drops, sprinkled from the
finger-tips.

"'Look!' she exclaimed, 'look! Tell me what thou see'st?'

"The pearly drops had scarcely touched the air before they joined,
when, on the instant, a vision rose before the sight. There was a
bright green meadow, edged by waving beech-trees, through whose
foliage the evening sun shed burnished gold. A youth was on his knees
before a maiden, in the act of offering her a golden ring. The picture
was, in the beginning, dim and indistinct, but it grew clearer and
clearer, until by degrees it dissolved again, and was lost in the
atmosphere.

"'What means this, Auriola?' enquired the ravished Bolko. 'Chain not
my unguarded heart to thine with such witchery. Misery and death will
be the penalty.'

"'Dream and listen,' replied Auriola. 'Hearts and souls have nothing
better to do. We do but speak into th