like a gravestone on the desolate scene; the
birds are songless; the wind is still; not a leaf stirs; and light alone
seems to be living in that dreary solitude. No one could observe the
entire absence of noise, motion, and vitality, without being impressed
with the idea that nature had been suddenly plunged in a deep and magic
sleep.

Suddenly the foliage at the end of a thicket in the distance is seen to
stir, while a cloud of twittering birds, frightened from the herbage,
flies rapidly across the little path, which is immediately occupied by a
young female dressed entirely in white, who dashes from between the
branches with a silken net in pursuit of a butterfly. The beautiful
apparition, with loose and streaming hair, seemed rather to fly than
run, as her light and rapid steps, full of eagerness and animation,
scarcely touched the earth while darting after the gaudy insect. How
graceful she is, as, halting for an instant beneath the coquettish moth,
she looks up to behold its gold-and-purple wings dancing round her head,
mocking and playing with its gay pursuer! She thinks she has caught it;
but, alas! the edge of her net only touched the butterfly's wings, and
away it dashes, over hedge and copse, far, far beyond her reach! How
beautiful she is, as, in that golden light, warmed with exercise and
excitement, her eyes glistening, her lips parted, her graceful arms
stretched upward, she stands gazing, half pleased, half disappointed,
after the departing insect, till it is lost in the evening sky! Wind and
sunshine have slightly tanned her delicate cheeks, but their roses are
only heightened into the glow of perfect health. Beneath her high and
polished brow, coal-black eyes shine through long and silken fringes,
while a chiselled mouth discloses rows of faultless pearls between lips
which shame the coral! Her stately head is framed in masses of long,
curling hair; and, as the locks are floated over her ivory shoulders by
rapid motion, the proud and arching lines of her swan-like neck are
fully displayed in all their splendor. Her form is lithe and supple, and
its graceful contour is modestly marked by a snowy dress. As she lifts
her head and gazes at the sky, a poet might easily fancy her to be some
fanciful "being of the air," and convert her into the fairy queen of the
solitary realm!

For a long while this beautiful woman wandered about the paths of the
lonely garden, seemingly absorbed in reveries of various kind