The carriage took a ford of the little river, and toiling up the slope beyond, was proceeding on its way to join the Milan road, when it was called to a sudden halt by the archduke.
“Tiretta!”
“Your Highness?”
“That was a bewitching vision.”
“It sits very prettily among its trees, to be sure.”
“Pooh, man! Get out and look back.”
Tiretta obeyed—and this is what he saw. The road ran straight across the river, and within the south-eastern angle made by the two was composed a little picture, very quaint and ravissante. It showed a leafy corner shadowed by chestnut trees, and a patch of green-embowered turf beyond, sloping to a tiny curved backwater, in which lay a miniature islet set like an aquamarine in a ring, the whole lying secluded from the road behind a high close hedge of tamarisk and juniper, in the thick of which was sunk a wooden wicket. But between the bank and islet was the wonder; for there, thigh-deep in the water, stood a young girl, plainly arrested in the act of reaching for a single golden lily which floated in the pool a yard or two beyond her grasp. There she stood, half diverted, half aghast, balancing herself by an overhanging branch, one slim arm raised, so that its sleeve dropped down almost to her arm-pit, the other, snatched hurriedly from its essay, pressing under to her knees her rebellious skirt, which yet would rise and rise again in snowy bubbles. The naiad’s umber hair had looped astray; the little milkmaid hat upon her head, with its cherry ribbon and saucy bow, was tilted askew; she stood transfixed a moment; then, with a laugh and shrug, turned and waded ashore.
An odd small face, peering from the green, greeted her. Then both disappeared, and only the swirling bobbing lily remained to tell of the picture.
A voice spoke at Tiretta’s side. The archduke had alighted.
“Fantastic, lovely—a spirit of the beautiful water. How the sun and shade fought for her face, her bosom! Tiretta.”